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Ox Tail Soup

A hearty soup made with ox tails, onions, peppercorns, ginger, mint, barley, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and mint work together. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 647 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ox Tail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Cut the ox tails into joints and wash them.

  2. Place the tails in a pot with 3 pints of cold water and bring to a boil over high heat.

  3. Skim the surface of the soup, then reduce the heat.

Simmer and finish

  1. Add the onions, peppercorns, green ginger, mint leaves, salt, and pearl barley.

  2. Simmer for 3 to 4 hours until the meat is tender.

  3. If using vermicelli or macaroni, add it after straining the soup.

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. Ginger + minttop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together647 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Onion + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,595 recipes

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

  3. Onion + barleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,166 recipes

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

  4. Ginger + barleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together59 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Onion + minttop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,389 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ox tails
Break down into gelatin and meat flavour as they simmer, giving the soup body and richness.
Pearl barley
Releases starch as it simmers, slightly thickening the broth and adding body.
Onions
Release sugars and aromatic compounds during long simmering, adding sweetness and depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Skim the surface after boiling. Boiling brings denatured proteins and fat to the surface as grey foam. Skimming it before reducing the heat keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, ginger, barley):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, ginger, barley. 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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