Skip to main content
Main

Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made from ox tail, celery, onion, carrot, butter, stock, thyme, bay leaf, salt, pepper, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Ox-tail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat and vegetables

  1. Cut the ox-tail into joints and fry in butter until browned.

  2. Remove the tail and fry the onions and carrots in the same butter.

Simmer the soup

  1. Cover the vegetables with the stock and add the ox-tail, thyme, and bay leaf.

  2. Cook slowly for 4 hours.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

Cool, skim and finish

  1. Transfer to a covered bowl to cool.

  2. After several hours, remove the layer of fat from the top.

  3. Warm the stock slightly and strain through a colander, reserving a few joints.

  4. Heat the soup to a boil.

  5. Color with caramel.

  6. Serve.

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox-tail
Releases gelatin and meaty flavor into the stock during long, slow cooking.
Butter
Fat that browns the ox-tail and softens the vegetables, building savory flavor.
Onion
Sweetens and deepens the soup's base flavor as it cooks down in butter.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and body to the stock as it softens.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavor of the meat and vegetables.

The step that matters

Skimming the fat after chilling. Fat rises and solidifies on cooled stock; removing it before reheating keeps the soup clear and prevents a greasy mouthfeel.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, carrot, butter, pepper, 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.

More ox tail soup recipes

Clear 5 See all 157 →

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCelery StewCelery Stew25 recipesCelery CroquettesCelery Croquettes16 recipes