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Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made with ox tails, ham, vegetables, herbs, and seasonings, thickened with flour and finished with ketchup and port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Ox-tail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the ox-tails into joints and wash them.

  2. In a large pot, melt the butter and add the ox-tail joints.

Make the broth

  1. Add ½ pint of water and cook over high heat until the juices are drawn out.

  2. Fill the pot with the remaining water and bring to a boil, then add the salt.

  3. Skim off any foam, then add the sliced vegetables, peppercorns, and herbs.

  4. Simmer gently for 4 hours, or until the ox-tails are tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the ox-tails, skim the soup, and strain it.

  2. Thicken the soup with flour, then stir in the ketchup and port wine.

  3. Return the ox-tails to the pot and simmer for an additional 5 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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox-tails
Connective tissue breaks down into gelatin during long simmering, giving the broth body and tender meat.
Butter
Fat that carries flavor and helps the ox-tail joints brown before the liquid goes in.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and deep, fruity flavor that rounds out the savory broth.
Ketchup
Adds acidity and savory, tangy depth to the finished soup.
Lump sugar
Adds a small amount of sweetness that balances the savory and acidic flavors.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 4 hours. A rolling boil emulsifies fat into the liquid and clouds the broth, and can toughen the meat. Gentle heat lets collagen slowly convert to gelatin, which keeps the meat tender and the soup clear.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, butter, carrot, turnip, onion, leek, celery):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Clovethe original

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