Instead of 30 minutes on the stove top, cook the oxtail & beef in a slow cooker for 2 hours on Hi or until ithey are very tender. (it's almost impossible to overcook oxtails) Also the onion and celery because they add great favor to the meat. Add 3 garlic pegs. I also cooked the rice separate and added on the side when serving. Great Soup!

It's a little bit difficult for me to really rate this recipe truthfully since I changed it quite a bit. I was trying to make a soup from ingredients I had in my house and oxtail isn't one of my common grocery items. So I used about two pounds of stewing meat and a pound of ground beef. I also added significantly more cumin (since I love it) and a little more chili powder. I also added cooking sherry and garlic (both chopped and powdered). I also used beef broth instead of boullion and then used less water. Everyone that tried it loved it. However, if I was to make it again I would cook the rice separately and add it to the bowl first and put the soup on top. With the rice cooked in the soup, it made the bottom of the soup rather solid and the leftovers were more like stew. A yummy trick that I was taught in Ecuador (and works well in a soup like this) is squeeze some lemon into the soup in the bowl as you serve it and sprinkle with finely chopped green onion.

I enjoyed this recipe. The only substitutions I made were, I cut a beef chuck roast into bite size pieces in place of the cube steak, added a clove of garlic & 1 tsp of dill weed. Great family fare.