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Ox-Tail Soup

A hearty soup made with ox tails, butter, vegetables, water, salt, flour, catsup, and port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and carrot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,601 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Ox-Tail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the tails at the joints and wash them.

  2. Place the tails in a stewpan with butter.

  3. Slice the vegetables and add them along with the herbs.

Make the stock

  1. Add ½ pint of water and stir over high heat until juices are released.

  2. Fill the stewpan with water, bring to a boil, add salt, and skim well.

  3. Simmer gently for 4 hours until the tails are tender.

  4. Remove the tails.

Finish the soup

  1. Skim and strain the soup, thicken with flour, and flavor with catsup and port wine.

  2. Return the tails to the soup, simmer for 5 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. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + port winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Carrot + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,029 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Ox tails
Collagen breaks down into gelatin during long simmering, giving the soup body and tender meat.
Butter
Fat carries flavor and helps the tails and vegetables brown lightly at the start.
Flour
Starch swells in the hot liquid, thickening the strained soup.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it cooks, building a savory aromatic base.
Catsup
Adds tangy sweetness and savory depth to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Skim well. Foam and fat rise to the surface as the stock heats and simmers. Removing them keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting, and stops greasy or bitter flavors from settling into the soup over four hours.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, flour, port wine):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, flour, port wine. 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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