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Oxtail Soup

A hearty soup made with oxtails, butter, flour, herbs, carrot, turnip, onion, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Oxtail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the oxtails into joints and place them in a pot with 3 quarts of cold water, then bring to a boil.

  2. Make a bouquet of one sprig each of parsley, thyme, marjoram, and two bay leaves, tied together.

  3. Peel the onion and stick six whole cloves into it.

  4. Peel the carrot and turnip, then dice them into half-inch pieces.

  5. Once the oxtails boil, drain and rinse them with cold water.

  6. Dry them with a clean towel.

Make the soup

  1. Return the oxtails to the pot with 1 oz of butter and brown them.

  2. Stir in 1 oz of flour and let it brown.

  3. Pour in 3 quarts of cold water, add the carrot, turnip, onion, and bouquet.

  4. Season with 1 tablespoon of coarse sea salt and ½ teaspoon of pepper.

  5. Cover and simmer for 2 hours.

  6. Remove the onion and bouquet before serving.

  7. The soup should be a rich brown color; if not, darken it with caramel.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Oxtails
Provide the meat and collagen that give the soup its body and richness.
Butter
Browns the oxtails and adds fat and savory aroma to the base.
Flour
Browns with the fat and thickens the broth slightly.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the broth as it simmers.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and body to the broth as it cooks down.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and earthy flavor to the broth.

The step that matters

Browning the oxtails and flour. Browning builds deep flavor and color through the Maillard reaction. Pale meat or flour gives a flat, light soup, which is why the color is checked at the end.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, parsley, thyme, marjoram, carrot, turnip):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, parsley, thyme, marjoram, carrot, turnip. 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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