Name: Ox Tail Soup
Ingredients: 1 or 2 ox tails; 1 gallon cold water; 1 small handful coarse sea salt; 1 onion, with 4 or 5 cloves stuck in it; 1 carrot, sliced; any other preferred vegetables

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 the broth

Wash the ox tails clean.
Place them in a gallon of cold water.
Add a small handful of coarse sea salt.
Cook until the meat is tender.

Finish the soup

Remove the bones.
Let it cool.
Skim off the fat.
Add the onion, carrot, and any other vegetables.
Cook until the vegetables are 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.

Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together21,601 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: Release gelatin and meat flavor into the broth as they simmer until tender.
Onion: Adds sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth as it cooks.
Carrot: Adds natural sweetness and body to the soup as it softens.

“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.