Why it works: Onion and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
Ox-tail Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the ox tails
Wash and cut up the ox tails, separating them at the joints.
In a pan, heat the beef dripping and fry the onion until slightly browned.
Move the onion to the side of the pan and brown half of the ox tails.
In a soup kettle, combine the fried onion and ox tails, then cover with 4 quarts of cold water.
Simmer and season
Tie the herbs, cloves, and peppercorns in a piece of cloth and add to the soup.
Add salt and simmer for 3 to 4 hours, or until the meat separates from the bone and the gristly parts are soft.
Select the nicest joints to serve with the soup.
Skim off any fat and adjust seasoning with more salt and pepper if needed.
Add vegetables and serve
Strain the soup and serve very hot.
For added vegetables, cut 1 pint of mixed onions, carrots, turnips, and celery into small pieces or fancy shapes.
Add the vegetables to the strained soup and boil for 20 minutes or until tender.
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.
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Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,092 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together16,901 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
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Clove + beeftop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,462 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Ox tails
- Provide meat and gelatin-rich connective tissue that gives the soup body and richness as they simmer.
- Beef dripping
- Adds fat for frying the onion and carries savoury, meaty flavour into the soup.
- Large onion
- Browning the onion in fat builds a sweet, savoury base for the soup.
- Mixed herbs
- Add aromatic, herbal flavour that infuses the broth during simmering.
The step that matters
Skim off the fat. Fat rises and collects on the surface of a simmered broth; removing it before serving keeps the soup clean-tasting and prevents it feeling greasy.
Swap the clove
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, beef):
- Garlicfits better
- Cuminfits better
- Celeryfits better
- Clovethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against onion, beef. 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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