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Ox-Tail Soup

A hearty soup made with ox-tail, carrots, onion, parsley, thyme, celery, mace, salt, peppercorns, and water or stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Ox-Tail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ox-tail

  1. Cut the ox-tail into 1-inch pieces and divide the thick part into four.

  2. Wash the ox-tail pieces, then boil them in water for 15 minutes and drain.

  3. Wipe the pieces with a soft cloth.

Make the soup

  1. In a stewpan, combine the ox-tail, carrots, onion, parsley, thyme, celery, mace, salt, peppercorns, and water or stock.

  2. Boil the mixture and remove the scum as it rises.

  3. Simmer gently until the meat is tender.

  4. Lift out the ox-tail pieces.

  5. Strain the soup.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 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-tail
Supplies the meat and gelatinous body that give the soup its rich flavour and texture.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body to the broth as they cook.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma to the broth.
Celery
Contributes aromatic flavour to the broth as it simmers.

The step that matters

Removing the scum as it rises. Boiling releases proteins and fats from the meat that form foam on the surface. Skimming them early keeps the broth clear and prevents a bitter, greasy taste.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, onion, clove, parsley, thyme, celery):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, clove, parsley, thyme, celery. 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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