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Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made with ox tails, ham, vegetables, and seasonings, finished with ketchup and port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 and wash them.

  2. Melt the butter in a large pot and add the ox-tails.

  3. Slice the vegetables.

Simmer the soup

  1. Add the sliced vegetables to the pot along with the peppercorns and herbs.

  2. Add 1 pint of water to the pot and cook over high heat until the juices are released.

  3. Fill the pot with the remaining water and bring the liquid to a boil.

  4. Add the coarse sea salt.

  5. Skim off any foam.

  6. Reduce the heat to simmer gently for 4 hours, or until the tails are tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the tails from the pot.

  2. Skim the soup.

  3. Strain the soup.

  4. Thicken the soup with flour.

  5. Stir in the ketchup and port wine.

  6. Return the tails to the pot.

  7. Simmer for 5 minutes before 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. 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, releasing gelatin that gives the soup body and rich flavour.
Onions
Sweet, savoury aromatics that build the flavour base of the broth.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body to the broth as they cook down.
Port wine
Adds sweetness, depth and a fruity aroma to the finished soup.
Flour (in the method)
Starch thickens the strained broth, giving it a fuller, more velvety texture.
Ketchup
Contributes tomato acidity and sweetness that rounds out the savoury broth.

The step that matters

Skim off the foam and fat. Foam and fat rising during the boil and long simmer can make the soup cloudy and greasy. Skimming keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, butter, carrot, turnip, onion, leek, celery):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, carrot, turnip, onion, leek, 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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