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Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made with ox tails, peppercorns, onion, cloves, celery, and herbs, simmered for six hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Ox-tail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and cut the ox tails at the joints.

  2. Heat the beef drippings in a pot and sauté the onion and half of the ox tail.

Make the soup

  1. Add the sautéed mixture to a soup kettle with the water.

  2. Bring to a boil, then add the peppercorns, cloves, salt, mixed herbs, and celery.

  3. Cook slowly for six hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the soup, saving some pieces of meat.

  2. Remove the fat, reheat the soup, and adjust seasoning if necessary.

  3. Add small pieces of meat to each serving before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  3. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Ox tails
Release collagen and meat flavor into the broth during long, slow cooking.
Beef drippings
Add fat that carries flavor and helps brown the onion and meat.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savory depth when sautéed before simmering.
Celery
Contributes aromatic, savory flavor to the broth as it simmers.

The step that matters

Cook slowly for six hours. A gentle simmer lets collagen in the tails slowly break down into gelatin, giving body to the broth. A hard boil can cloud the soup and toughen the meat.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, beef, celery, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, beef, celery, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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