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Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made with ox tails, ham, vegetables, herbs, and spices, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and carrot 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 and start the soup

  1. Join the ox tails and slice the vegetables and ham.

  2. In a soup kettle, melt 2 tablespoons of butter and add the tails, ham, vegetables, herbs, and 1 pint of water.

  3. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes after it starts to smoke.

Simmer and store

  1. Add 6 quarts of water and simmer for 4 hours, or until the vegetables are soft and the tails are very tender.

  2. On Saturday, season the soup and transfer it to a stock jar.

  3. On Sunday, remove the fat and strain the soup, mashing the vegetables and discarding the pieces of tail.

  4. Return the tail pieces and any leftover ham to the stock jar.

Finish and serve

  1. Heat the portion for serving, stir in a spoonful of browned flour mixed with water, add the catsup and wine, and bring to a boil 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 + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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 flavor into the broth during long simmering, giving body and richness.
Butter
Fat used to start the browning and carry flavor from the aromatics.
Ham
Adds savory, salty depth to the broth as it simmers.
Turnips
Soften during simmering and mash into the soup, adding body and mild sweetness.
Carrots
Soften and mash into the soup, adding body and natural sweetness.
Catsup
Adds tomato sweetness and acidity to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Simmer until the tails are very tender. Ox tail meat and connective tissue need a long, gentle simmer to break down. Rushing this step leaves tough meat and a thin, less gelatinous broth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, carrot, clove, wine, pepper, ham, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, carrot, clove, wine, pepper, ham, butter. 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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