Skip to main content
Soup

Ox-head Soup

A soup made with ox head, tongue, potatoes, turnips, onions, carrots, celery, herbs, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Ox-head Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place the ox's head, tongue, and vegetables (except the potatoes) in a large pot with the water.

  2. Bring to a boil slowly and maintain a gentle boil for 5 hours.

  3. After 3 hours, remove the tongue and cover it with some broth to cool.

  4. After 5 hours, strain the broth, removing bones and meat.

  5. Season the broth and transfer it to a clean stock jar.

Finish the soup

  1. Puree the vegetables into the soup, season again, and pour any excess into the stock pot.

  2. Add the skimmed and strained broth from yesterday's chicken bones and the mashed potatoes.

  3. Simmer slowly for 10 minutes, then serve.

Combine

  1. Once the tongue and stock are cold, combine them.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  5. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox's head
Provides the rich body and gelatin that give the broth its depth.
Potatoes
Mashed into the soup, they thicken it and add body and starchy smoothness.
Turnips
Contribute sweetness and earthy flavor as they cook down into the broth.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and color, and thicken the broth when pureed.
Onions
Add savory aroma and depth as they simmer in the broth.

The step that matters

Maintaining a gentle boil. A vigorous boil makes the broth cloudy and can break down the meat and vegetables unevenly. A slow, steady simmer keeps the broth clear and extracts flavor gradually over the long cook.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, turnip, onion, carrot, celery, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, turnip, onion, carrot, celery, pepper. 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.

You might also like

Indian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and SpinachIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and Spinach448 recipesCream of Potato SoupCream of Potato Soup38 recipesCream of CeleryCream of Celery37 recipesClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd SoupClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd Soup65 recipes