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Ox-tail Soup

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

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.

  2. Wash the ox-tail pieces.

Make the stock

  1. Melt the butter in a large stewpan.

  2. Add the ox-tail pieces to the stewpan.

  3. Add the sliced vegetables and herbs to the stewpan.

  4. Pour in ½ pint of water.

  5. Cook over high heat until juices are released.

  6. Fill the stewpan with water.

  7. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  8. Add the coarse sea salt.

  9. Skim the surface.

  10. Simmer gently for 4 hours until the tails are tender.

Finish the soup

  1. Remove the ox-tail pieces from the stew.

  2. Skim the soup.

  3. Strain the soup.

  4. Thicken the soup with flour.

  5. Add the catsup and port wine.

  6. Return the ox-tail pieces to the soup.

  7. Simmer for 5 minutes. 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
Long simmering breaks down connective tissue, making the meat tender and the broth rich and full-bodied.
Butter
Fat that carries flavour into the vegetables and helps them begin cooking.
Carrots
Natural sweetness and body that flavour the broth as they cook down.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the finished soup.
Catsup
Adds tomato-based sweetness and acidity to the soup.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 4 hours. Vigorous boiling agitates fat and particles into the liquid, clouding the broth, and toughens meat proteins. A slow simmer keeps the broth clear and lets the connective tissue in the ox-tails break down until the meat is tender.

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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