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Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made from ox tail, vegetables, and spices, simmered until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ox-tail Soup

serves 2 (1 cup per portion when reheating)

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Wash the ox-tail in cold water and place it in a porcelain or agate kettle.

  2. Pour in 5 quarts of cold water and soak for 2 hours.

  3. Bring the water to a boil gradually and simmer until the meat falls off the bones.

  4. Add the chopped carrot, leek, celery, parsley, and tomatoes.

  5. Once the vegetables are soft, strain the soup and let it cool.

Finish and store

  1. The next day, skim off the fat and reheat the soup.

  2. Add salt, browned flour, mixed spices, cayenne, and sugar.

  3. Store in a glass preserving jar; it will keep for 2 weeks in cold weather.

  4. When reheating, use 1 cup of soup for 2 people and add a few spoonfuls of water.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox-tail
Breaks down into rich meat and gelatin that give the soup body and flavour.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and a bright, savoury note to the broth.
Browned flour
Thickens the soup slightly and adds a toasted, nutty flavour.
Carrot
Releases sweetness and aromatic flavour into the broth as it cooks.

The step that matters

Skim off the fat the next day. Fat that has cooled and solidified on the surface makes the soup greasy if left in. Chilling the strained soup overnight lets the fat set on top so it lifts off cleanly before reheating.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, leek, celery, parsley, flour, clove, allspice):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, leek, celery, parsley, flour, clove, allspice. 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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