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Ox-tail Soup

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Ox-tail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the ox tails into pieces and wash them well in cold water.

  2. In a soup kettle, melt the butter and add the ox tails.

  3. Slice the vegetables and add them along with the herbs and peppercorns.

  4. Add ½ cup of water, stir, and cook for 10 minutes.

Simmer the soup

  1. Fill the kettle with the remaining water and bring to a boil, skimming off any foam.

  2. Add the salt and simmer gently for 4 hours or until the ox tails are tender.

  3. Remove the ox tails from the soup and strain the broth.

Finish and serve

  1. Thicken the broth with a little flour, then add the port wine and tomato ketchup.

  2. Return the ox tails to the soup, simmer for 10 minutes, and serve.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Leek + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  5. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ox tails
Release gelatin and meaty flavour into the broth during long simmering, giving body.
Port wine
Adds depth and a mildly sweet, fruity note to the finished broth.
Tomato ketchup
Contributes sweetness and acidity, rounding out the savoury broth.
Butter
Fat that softens the vegetables and carries aroma at the start of cooking.

The step that matters

Skimming the foam after boiling. Foam contains coagulated proteins and impurities that cloud the broth and taste bitter if left to mix back in. Removing it early keeps the soup clear and clean-flavoured.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, carrot, onion, leek, celery, ketchup. 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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