8-hour Bulalo – Filipina Soup ‘w’ Wagyu Ox-Tail

8-hour Bulalo – Filipina Soup ‘w’ Wagyu Ox-Tail

We are all massively missing our friends and family in the Philippines, so when I saw my BFF Shaun @ Orca touting Wagyu Ox-Tail in his latest WhatsApp I jumped at the chance to get some and create this legendary Filipino dish. I have not really done this before but had an idea of the way to do it. I also wanted the Wagyu for the marbling and to go low, slow and long for cooking this. I want this Ox-Tail to fall apart in your mouth and for the flavours to be intense.

Job done!!! The 8 hours helped.

8-hour Bulalo – Filipina Soup ‘w’ Wagyu Ox-Tail

It’s actually very easy to do, from prep to cooking to serving – as you will see below.

It’s Filipino comfort food.

It reminded us of family, friends and our 2nd home. I am proud of that.

Plus it is #BillWallaceFriendly AND #KnibbsyKiddleWagyuFriendly.

Here we go – enough here for 5-6 PAX easy;

1. Take a huge stockpot with a lid and throw it on the hob – add-in;
   • 1Kg of Wagyu Ox-Tail – give it a good rinse in freshwater first;
   • 4-5 litres of water;
   • 2 beef stock cubes;
   • 2 red onions – peeled and quartered;
   • 2 Tbsp of finely chopped garlic;
   • 3 Tbsp of fish sauce;
   • A good sprinkle of sea salt & cracked black pepper;
2. Bring to the boil and reduce to a very low simmer for 4 hours;
3. Add in 2 corn cobs cut into 1″ pieces;
4. Keep the low simmer for another 4 hours;
5. As you are doing this check every hour or so and skim off the excess fat/oil on the surface that comes from the ox-tail;
6. When you are just before the eight-hour mark, add in a Chinese cabbage that has been cleaned and chopped to bite-sized pieces;
7. Let it go for another 20 minutes or so to soften up the cabbage;
8. Serve in bowls with some Native Sauce for dipping.

To make the Native Sauce add some white vinegar, soy, a chilli paid and Calamansi lime in a little bowl. That is a welcome to the Philippines in that little bowl right there. This soup was awesome. It sent us all on a virtual flight to the Philippines and days with the family sat in Tagbilaran or on Panglao Island. It was bloody good, even if I say so myself. Wifey’s comments made me proud of this attempt too. Very intense sweetcorn flavour though. I need to tone that down next time by throwing in the sweetcorn more towards the end (mental note to self) – like at the 7-hour point. But hey, I was still impressed with this little bit of the Philippines hitting our table today. The ox-tail was intense flavour, especially with that Native Sauce. Plus it was literally fall-apart soft amazing Wagyu. This was my 1st attempt at 8-hour Bulalo – Filipina Soup ‘w’ Wagyu Ox-Tail, and I am proud of it – ENJOY!!!

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Brian Kennett

Father of 3. All my kids are mixed, with English-Japanese, and English-Filipino - a recipe in the making there. I have been cooking since a small lad, as guided by my Nan and my Mum - gradually that morphed through exposure to Thai cooking from a lovely lady called Da in Margate. I used to hang out in her restaurant and watch the techniques. So the 1+1= greater than 2 occurred - Mum/Nan/Da - off I went in to the world of Asian cuisine. Moving to Asia in early 2000's clearly has brought that on somewhat - we travel continually, and eat locally and therefore have exposure to more and more new things. I have lived my dream and written a cook book whilst here, an amazing experience and all for a good cause too as I raised a lot of money for charity. My blog is now hopefully turning in to book number 2. Watch this space. I hope you enjoy my passion.