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Ox-Tail Soup

A preserved soup made from ox tails, beef essence, jelly, mushroom catsup, spices, and sugar, canned in retort.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ox-Tail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Wash the ox tails in cold water and cut them into small pieces at the joints.

  2. Cook the pieces in boiling water for 20 minutes, skimming off any scum.

  3. Remove the knuckles and separate the meat from the bones.

Make the soup

  1. In a large pot, combine beef essence, jelly, mushroom catsup, and salt.

  2. Make a thin batter with flour, sieve it, and stir it into the soup mixture slowly.

  3. Season the soup with white pepper, nutmeg, mace, cloves, and sugar.

  4. Boil all ingredients together until ready to can.

Can and process

  1. In two-pound cans, place 4 ounces of meat and fill with soup to weigh 2 pounds 1 ounce.

  2. Wipe the cans.

  3. Cap them with vents open.

  4. Place on racks in the retort.

  5. Process the cans for 1 hour and 30 minutes at 3 pounds pressure.

  6. After processing, shut off steam.

  7. Slowly release pressure.

  8. Remove cans.

  9. Quickly stop the vents.

  10. Return cans to the retort for 1 hour and 45 minutes at 9 pounds pressure.

  11. Withdraw cans.

  12. Shower until cool.

  13. Send to wash and labeling rooms.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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-rich connective tissue that gives the broth body and richness.
Beef essence
Forms the savory beef base that carries the flavor of the whole soup.
Jelly
Adds gelling body and thickness to the soup as it cools and sets.
Flour
Thickens the soup mixture so it has a fuller, smoother body.
Mushroom catsup
Adds savory, umami depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Stir the flour batter in slowly. Flour added to hot liquid clumps easily unless it is first thinned into a smooth batter and sieved. Adding it slowly while stirring keeps the soup smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, mushroom, flour, nutmeg, mace, clove, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, mushroom, flour, nutmeg, mace, clove, sugar. 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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