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Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made with ox tails, ham, vegetables, herbs, and flavored with catsup, port wine, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Ox-tail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the ox-tails into pieces at the joints and wash them.

  2. In a large pot, melt the butter and add the ox-tails.

  3. Chop the vegetables and add them along with the herbs.

  4. Pour in ½ pint of water and cook over high heat until the juices are released.

Simmer the soup

  1. Add the remaining water and bring to a boil, then stir in the salt.

  2. Skim off any foam and simmer gently for 4 hours until the tails are tender.

  3. Remove the tails, skim the soup, and strain it.

Finish and serve

  1. Thicken the soup with flour and add the catsup and port wine.

  2. Return the tails to the pot, simmer for 5 minutes, and serve.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox-tails
Provide the meat and gelatin that give the soup its body and rich flavour.
Butter
Fat that browns the ox-tails and carries flavour into the soup.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth as they cook down into the broth.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and deep, fruity aroma to the finished soup.
Catsup
Contributes acidity and sweetness that rounds out the seasoning.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the soup so it has a fuller, more velvety texture.

The step that matters

Skim off any foam while simmering. Foam and impurities rise to the surface as the broth heats. Skimming them keeps the soup clear and free of bitter, greasy flavours. Simmering gently rather than boiling keeps the meat tender and the broth clean.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, butter, carrot, turnip, leek, celery, pepper):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, carrot, turnip, leek, celery, pepper. 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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