Oxtail Soup with Knockerl (homemade dumplings)

So, this has ALWAYS been my favourite soup.  

I was at the St Jacob's Farmers Market with my mom and dad one Saturday this winter.  The butcher from Charles Best Quality Meats had some oxtails for sale at his stand, and he held one up for us to see... just like another butcher did a long time ago... for my sister Carla, in Germany, many many years ago (now that's a really funny story).  But then it got me craving a bowl of hearty oxtail soup, and though I didn't purchase my bones from Charles Best that day, I did get some about a week later.  I was determined to document how one makes this incredibly rich tasting and deeply satisfying soup.

 I bought two packages of bones, one with two large, meaty bone joints, and one with three smaller ones for a cost of about $9.00, for both packages of oxtails.

The key to making this soup taste amazing, is to brown the bones until they are a deep brown colour.  Dredge the bones in flour and season them generously with salt and pepper.  Heat a little oil in a pan.  Brown and turn, brown and turn, and then brown and turn them some more.  The deeper the colour, the deeper the flavour.  I chopped an equal amount of onions as bones as they were browning.  Browning the onions until they are a nice caramel brown means great onion flavour as well.  Just remember, you cannot hurry this part of the process, it takes TIME to do the browning properly, for the best tasting results. 

You see in this picture, I added the onions to the pan as the oxtail bones continued to brown, as they take almost as much time to brown as the bones.

THIS is the deep dark brown colour I was waiting for!

Now, this next step is something my mother never did.  I use my crock pot to cook this beautiful dish to tender perfection.  I added the oxtail bones to the onions, a couple stalks of chopped celery, and enough water to cover it all.  

I tossed in two chopped carrots, and then let it all simmer overnight and for a full day of work.

This is what it looked like after about 12 hours of cooking on low.  I put it in the fridge to chill, and to possibly scoop any excess oil off the top when it congealed... but it was actually very lean, so I didn't have to do that.

I (easily) pulled and shredded the meat off those now super tender bones...

... and then I reheated the whole crockpot of love on the stovetop, adding some freshly chopped parsley for a most special dinner.

But I simply had to complete the dish with some  homemade dumplings, or Knockerl, as we call them.  Put a pot of water on to boil, and sprinkle a generous amount of salt into the water.

Make the Knockerl simply by stirring 3/4 cup flour with 2 eggs, a generous dash of salt, and just enough milk to bring it together into a fairly thick batter.

Scoop half a spoonful and drop or scrape each little dumpling into the boiling water.  Don't worry about perfection... once they puff up, they turn into homemade noodle / dumplings of utter YUMMINESS!!!

You'll see them start to pop up to the surface of the water as they cook.

It only takes a minute or two.

When they're floating and cooked through (be sure to taste them), scoop them out of the water and combine them with the savoury oxtail soup.

Oh man, look at that rich colour!  THIS amazingly silky wonder is why oxtail soup is my favourite soup of all time, even since I was a little kid.

Is it a soup or is it a stew?  No matter what you call it, it simply doesn't get any better than this.  

That is the truth.

What is your favourite soup?  Do you have any recipe requests?  Feel free to comment!