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Oxtail Soup

A hearty soup made with oxtail, vegetables, and seasonings, thickened with roux.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Oxtail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Cut the oxtail into small pieces.

  2. Place the oxtail in a pot with the vegetables, onion, celery, water, and soup stock.

  3. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and let it simmer until the oxtail is tender.

  4. Remove the oxtail pieces and strain the broth through a fine sieve to remove vegetable pulp.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the roux to the strained broth and boil well together.

  2. Stir in the sherry, return the oxtail pieces to the pot, and bring to a boil again.

  3. Season with pepper, sugar, and salt to taste.

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

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

  2. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,422 recipes

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

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Oxtail
Gives the soup its meaty flavour and body as it simmers into the broth.
Roux
Thickens the strained broth so it has a fuller, smoother body.
Soup stock
Adds savoury depth as the base liquid for the broth.
Celery
Contributes aromatic flavour to the broth during simmering.
Sherry
Adds a small amount of acidity and aroma to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Simmering the oxtail until tender. Oxtail is rich in connective tissue that needs long, gentle simmering to soften. Rapid boiling can toughen the meat and cloud the broth, so the heat should stay low once it has come to a boil.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (allspice, celery, pepper, sugar, sherry):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against allspice, celery, pepper, sugar, sherry. 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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