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Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made from ox tails simmered with onion, herbs, cloves, peppercorns, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Ox-tail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and cut up the ox tails, separating them at the joints.

  2. Fry the chopped onion in beef dripping until slightly browned, then move it to the side of the pan.

  3. Brown half of the ox tails in the same pan.

Make the soup

  1. In a soup kettle, combine the fried onion and the browned ox tails, then cover with 4 quarts of cold water.

  2. Tie the herbs, cloves, and peppercorns in a piece of cloth and add to the soup.

  3. Add salt and simmer for 3 to 4 hours, or until the meat separates from the bone and is tender.

  4. Select the best joints to serve with the soup.

  5. Skim off any fat and adjust seasoning with more salt and pepper if needed.

  6. Strain the soup and serve very hot.

  7. If desired, add 1 pint of mixed chopped onions, carrots, turnips, and celery to the strained soup and boil for 20 minutes until tender.

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. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Clove + beeftop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 collagen into the broth, giving body and a rich mouthfeel as they simmer.
Beef dripping
Fat for frying the onion and browning the ox tails, adding savoury, roasted flavour.
Large onion
Softens and sweetens as it fries, building the flavour base of the soup.
Cloves
Add warm, aromatic spice flavour to the broth during simmering.
Peppercorns
Add mild, pungent spiciness that infuses the broth as it simmers.

The step that matters

Brown half of the ox tails in the same pan. Browning creates Maillard reactions that develop deep, savoury flavour in the meat and fat, which then carries into the broth. Pale meat yields a flatter-tasting soup.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, beef):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, beef. 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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