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Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made with ox tails, vegetables, and a brown gravy base.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Ox-tail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the ox-tails, carrot, turnip, onions, celery, leek, parsley, thyme, and bay leaf.

  3. Pour in ½ cup of water and add the peppercorns.

  4. Cook over high heat, stirring occasionally, until the bottom is covered with a thick brown glaze.

  5. Stir in the flour, then add 3 quarts of water and the salt.

Simmer and strain

  1. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and skim the surface.

  2. Add the brown gravy or browning and let simmer until the ox-tails are tender.

  3. Remove the ox-tails and place them in a tureen.

  4. Strain the soup through a fine sieve over the ox-tails.

Serve

  1. Top with the boiled and chopped celery before serving.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  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

Ox-tails
Release gelatin and meaty flavor into the broth as they simmer long until tender.
Flour
Thickens the broth slightly and helps it cling to the ingredients.
Onions
Caramelize during the browning step, adding sweetness and depth to the broth.
Brown gravy or browning
Adds deeper color and roasted, savory flavor to the finished soup.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and aromatic body to the broth as it cooks down.

The step that matters

Cook over high heat until a thick brown glaze forms. Browning the vegetables and ox-tails on the pot bottom creates Maillard flavors that give the soup depth. Stirring prevents scorching, while pale vegetables would produce a flat, washed-out broth.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, carrot, turnip, celery, leek, parsley, thyme. 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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