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Ox Tail Soup

A hearty soup made with ox tail, lean beef, vegetables, herbs, and thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley 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 ↓

Ox Tail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Fry the ox tail joints in good drippings until browned.

  2. Remove the joints and fry the sliced onion and carrot in the same drippings until done.

  3. Tie the thyme and parsley in a cheese-cloth bag and add it to a soup pot with 2 quarts of water.

Simmer and finish

  1. Add the fried ox tail and the strips of lean beef to the pot.

  2. Grate a carrot over the mixture and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Boil slowly for 3 hours.

  4. Thicken the soup with brown flour moistened with water.

  5. Strain the soup and boil for an additional 3 minutes.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 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

Ox tail
Browned joints release gelatin and meat flavor that give the broth body and richness.
Lean beef
Strips simmered for hours add meaty flavor and tenderness to the broth.
Onion
Frying until done builds sweetness and savory depth in the base.
Carrot
Sliced and grated carrot add natural sweetness and body to the soup.
Brown flour
Starch thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the soup a fuller texture.

The step that matters

Thicken with brown flour moistened with water. Flour must be mixed smoothly with cold water before it goes in; added dry or lumpy it clumps and won't thicken evenly. Starch swells and thickens only when heated in liquid.

Swap the onion

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

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

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