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Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made with ox-tails, vegetables, herbs, and a thickened broth flavored with Madeira wine and ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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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

Make the stock

  1. In a stew-pan, combine the ox-tails, butter, carrots, celery, turnips, ham, pepper, parsley, thyme, and cold water.

  2. Stir over high heat to extract the flavor of the herbs.

  3. Add 3 quarts of water and bring to a simmer.

  4. Cook for 4 hours or until the ox-tails are tender, skimming the surface as needed.

  5. Strain the soup, reserving the ox-tails.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in a little flour to thicken, along with the Madeira wine, ketchup, and boiled celery.

  2. Return the pieces of ox-tail to the strained soup, boil for a few minutes, and 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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 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-tails
Release gelatin and meaty flavor into the broth as they cook slowly for hours.
Butter
Carries fat-soluble flavors from the vegetables and herbs into the soup.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the stock as they cook down.
Turnips
Contribute mild sweetness and earthy flavor to the stock.
Lean ham
Adds savory, salty depth to the broth.
Flour
Thickens the soup so it has a smoother, heavier body.

The step that matters

Skimming the surface while the ox-tails simmer. Fat and foam rise to the surface during a long simmer. Removing them keeps the soup clear and prevents a greasy, cloudy broth.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Parsnipfits about as well
  2. Turnipthe original
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Shallotfits about as well

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

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