Skip to main content
Main

Ox-Tail Soup

A hearty soup made from ox tails, onion, carrot, spices, and browned flour for thickening.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and carrot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,601 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Ox-Tail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tails

  1. Divide the ox tails at the joints.

  2. Soak them in warm water.

  3. Place the tails in a gallon pot and cover with cold water.

  4. Skim off any froth that forms on the surface.

Simmer and finish

  1. Boil the tails until the meat is tender and falls off the bones.

  2. Remove the bones.

  3. Add the chopped onion and carrot.

  4. Season with spices and herbs as desired.

  5. Thicken the soup with browned flour.

  6. Boil for an additional 3 to 4 hours.

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

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

  2. Carrot + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,029 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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, collagen and rich flavour that give the soup its body.
Browned flour
Thickens the soup as its starch swells in the hot liquid, and adds a toasted flavour.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and sweetness as it softens into the broth.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and body to the broth as it cooks.

The step that matters

Skim off the froth. Foam rising at the start carries impurities and proteins that can make the broth cloudy and taste off. Removing it early keeps the soup clear and clean-flavoured.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, flour. 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.

More ox tail soup recipes

Clear 5 See all 157 →

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes