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Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made with ox tails, water, salt, onion, carrot, tomatoes, pepper, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Ox-tail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Wash the ox tails.

  2. Place the washed ox tails in a kettle with cold water.

  3. Add salt to the kettle.

  4. Skim off the froth as the water cooks.

  5. Once the meat is tender, remove the bones.

Finish the soup

  1. Add chopped onion, carrot, and tomatoes to the pot.

  2. Chop the ox tails into small pieces.

  3. Brown the chopped ox tails in butter.

  4. Add broth to taste.

  5. Boil until the pieces are well cooked.

  6. Season with pepper.

  7. 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 + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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

Ox tails
Provide the meat and gelatin-rich body that gives the soup its flavor and richness.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and a tangy, savory flavor to the broth.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth as it softens into the broth.
Carrot
Adds mild sweetness and body to the soup.
Butter
Adds fat and promotes browning on the meat pieces, deepening flavor.

The step that matters

Skim off the froth as the water cooks. Foam contains coagulated proteins and impurities that can cloud the broth and taste bitter if left in. Removing it as it forms keeps the soup clear and clean-flavored.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, carrot, pepper, butter):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, carrot, pepper, butter. 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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