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Oxtail Soup

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Coriander and fennel match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 426 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Oxtail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a large pot.

  2. Add the flour and sugar, cooking until the mixture is a nice brown.

  3. Make a thin paste by adding 1 gallon of warm water to the mixture.

  4. Add this paste to the soup stock along with the spices and salt.

  5. Cook all together until the soup begins to thicken.

  6. Fill into No. 1 cans.

  7. Exhaust for 3 minutes and process for 45 minutes at 250°F (120°C).

  8. Dilute the soup by half when 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. Coriander + fenneltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together426 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Clove + fenneltop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together350 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + coriandertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,221 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Coriander + wheattop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together170 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Fennel + wheattop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together30 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, coriander, fennel, sugar, butter, wheat, flour):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, coriander, fennel, sugar, butter, wheat, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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