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Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made with ox-tail, ham, vegetables, and herbs, thickened with cornflour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Ox-tail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the ox-tail into joints and wash them.

  2. In a large pot, fry the onions in butter until soft.

  3. Add the cut ham and ox-tail joints, then pour in the cold water.

  4. Simmer for 2 hours.

Simmer and finish

  1. Add the vegetables, bouquet of herbs, and seasoning, then simmer for an additional 2 hours.

  2. Strain the soup to remove solids.

  3. Thicken the soup with cornflour, bring to a boil, and serve with the meat from the joints.

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. Mushroom + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Sherry + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

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

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

  4. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox-tail
Releases collagen and gelatin during long simmering, giving the soup body and a rich mouthfeel.
Butter
Fat that carries flavour from the softened onions into the soup base.
Cornflour
Starch that swells when heated, thickening the strained soup.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty depth to the broth during simmering.
Onions
Sweetness and aroma as they soften in butter at the start.

The step that matters

Simmer for 2 hours. A gentle simmer draws collagen from the ox-tail into the liquid without boiling it hard, which keeps the broth clear and the meat tender.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sherry, ham, mushroom, ketchup, beef, onion):

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sherry, ham, mushroom, ketchup, beef, onion. 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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