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Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made with ox tail, lean beef, carrots, onions, thyme, butter, flour, salt, sugar, lemon juice, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,973 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ox-tail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat and vegetables

  1. Cut the ox-tail into pieces.

  2. Fry the ox-tail in butter until browned. Remove the ox-tail.

  3. Fry the onions and 2 carrots.

Simmer the soup

  1. Place the fried vegetables and ox-tail in a soup pot with thyme and sliced beef.

  2. Grate in the remaining 2 carrots and pour in 4 quarts of water.

  3. Boil slowly for 4 hours.

  4. Strain the soup.

Finish the soup

  1. Thicken the soup with 2 tablespoons of flour.

  2. Add salt and sugar.

  3. Stir in the juice of ½ lemon to enhance the flavor.

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. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 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. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 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-tail
Browned in butter and simmered for hours, it releases gelatin and meaty flavor into the broth.
Lean beef
Adds meaty depth and savoury flavour to the broth during the long simmer.
Onions
Fried first to build sweetness and savoury depth that carries into the soup.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body as they soften during the long simmer.
Flour
Thickens the strained broth, giving it a fuller, smoother body.
Butter
Fat used to brown the ox-tail, adding richness and browned flavour.

The step that matters

Browning the ox-tail in butter. Browning triggers the Maillard reaction, creating roasted, savoury flavours that a plain simmer cannot produce. Pale meat gives a flatter, blander broth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, thyme, butter, flour, sugar, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, thyme, butter, flour, sugar, lemon. 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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