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Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made with ox tail, vegetables, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Ox-tail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ox-tail

  1. Wash the ox-tail pieces in cold water.

  2. Place the ox-tail in a pot and cover with fresh cold water. Bring to a boil, then drain and dry the ox-tail.

  3. Coat the ox-tail in seasoned flour (salt and pepper).

Brown and simmer

  1. In a saucepan, heat the butter until smoking hot. Brown the ox-tail in the butter.

  2. While browning, dice the carrot, turnip, and onion.

  3. Add the diced vegetables, boiling water, and season with salt and pepper to the browned ox-tail.

  4. Cover and simmer the soup slowly for 3 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the table sauce before serving.

  2. If the soup is too thin, thicken with browned flour; if too thick, thin with boiling water.

  3. Adjust seasoning 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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Flour + turniptop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox-tail
Provides the main meat and rich flavour as it simmers slowly into the broth.
Flour
Coats the ox-tail and, when browned, can thicken the soup.
Butter
Fat used to brown the ox-tail, building colour and savoury flavour.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and body to the broth as it softens during simmering.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and body to the broth as it softens during simmering.
Onion
Adds aroma and savoury depth to the broth as it cooks down.

The step that matters

Browning the ox-tail in butter. Searing floured meat in very hot fat triggers the Maillard reaction, creating browned flavour and colour. Pieces crowded or not dry enough will steam instead of browning, leaving the soup flat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, pepper, butter, carrot, turnip, sauce):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, pepper, butter, carrot, turnip, sauce. 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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