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Oxtail Soup

A hearty soup made with oxtail, beef, onions, carrots, herbs, and browned flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Oxtail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the meat and vegetables

  1. Fry the oxtail joints in good drippings until browned.

  2. In the same drippings, fry the sliced onions and carrots.

Simmer and strain

  1. Place the oxtail, onions, and carrots in a soup pot with 4 quarts of cold water.

  2. Add the lean beef, parsley, and thyme.

  3. Boil slowly for 4 hours, then strain the soup.

Thicken and season

  1. Thicken the soup with 2 tablespoons of browned flour mixed with cold water.

  2. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Oxtail
Releases gelatin and savory flavor into the broth as it simmers for hours.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth as they cook down.
Carrots
Contribute sweetness and body to the broth during the long simmer.
Lean beef
Adds meaty flavor to the broth as it simmers.
Browned flour
Thickens the broth and adds a toasty, nutty flavor.

The step that matters

Browning the oxtail joints. Browning triggers the Maillard reaction, which creates deep, roasted flavors that carry into the broth. Pale meat produces a flatter-tasting soup.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, beef, parsley, thyme, flour, pepper):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, beef, parsley, thyme, flour, 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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