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Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made from ox tails simmered with onion, carrot, tomatoes, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Ox-tail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Wash the ox tails.

  2. Place them in a kettle with 1 gallon of cold water and a little coarse sea salt.

  3. Skim off the froth.

  4. Cook until the meat is tender.

  5. Remove the bones and add the chopped onion, carrot, and tomatoes.

  6. Refrigerate overnight to remove fat.

  7. Add vegetables and boil for 1.5 hours.

Finish the soup

  1. Chop the ox tails into small pieces.

  2. Brown the pieces in 1 tablespoon of butter.

  3. Pour off excess fat.

  4. Add broth to taste.

  5. Simmer until the meat is well cooked.

  6. Season with pepper, salt, and additional tomatoes.

  7. Boil for 15 minutes 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 + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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
Slow cooking breaks down connective tissue, releasing gelatin that gives the broth body and the meat tenderness.
Butter
Browning the meat pieces in butter adds roasted, savoury flavour and colour to the finished soup.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and a fresh, tangy flavour that balances the rich, fatty broth.
Onion
Releases sweetness and aromatic depth as it cooks into the broth.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and body to the broth as it softens.

The step that matters

Refrigerate overnight to remove fat. Fat solidifies when the broth is chilled, so it lifts off as a layer that can be removed. Skipping this leaves the soup greasy and heavy.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, carrot, butter, 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.

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