Skip to main content
Main

Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made from ox tails, ham, vegetables, herbs, and seasonings, simmered for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 36 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Ox-tail Soup

10 persons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tails

  1. Cut up the ox tails, separating them at the joints; wash them and put them in a stewpan with butter.

  2. Cut the vegetables in slices and add them with peppercorns and herbs.

  3. Put in ½ pint of water and stir over a sharp fire until the juices are drawn.

Simmer the soup

  1. Fill the stewpan with water, and when boiling add salt.

  2. Skim well and simmer very gently for 4 hours, or until the tails are tender.

Thicken and serve

  1. Take the tails out, skim and strain the soup, thicken with flour, and flavor with ketchup and port wine.

  2. Put the tails back, simmer for 5 minutes, and serve.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

767Calories
81 gProtein
28 gFat
44 gCarbs

Counts 16 of 18 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 16 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Pork100g cooked242
Chicken100g cooked165
Oyster6 medium (84g)81
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Turnip1 medium (122g)34
Carrot1 medium (61g)25
Port Wine2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)25
Tomato1 medium (123g)22
Mushroom1/2 cup sliced (35g)15
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Celery1 stalk (40g)6
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Allspice1 tsp ground (1.9g)5
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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 gelatinous body that flavours and enriches the broth as they simmer.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the strained soup so it has body rather than running thin.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the finished soup.
Ketchup
Adds savoury, acidic depth to the soup's seasoning.

The step that matters

Simmer the tails very gently until tender. A rolling boil toughens and breaks up meat, while gentle simmering slowly dissolves connective tissue into gelatin, giving tender tails and a richer broth.

“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.

More ox tail soup recipes

Clear 5 See all 157 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipes