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Ox Tail Soup

A hearty soup made with oxtail, vegetables, and herbs simmered for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Ox Tail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oxtail

  1. Cut the oxtail into joints and remove the fat.

  2. Melt the butter in a large pot and brown the oxtail pieces.

  3. Add the sliced onion to the pot and brown it with the oxtail.

Simmer

  1. Pour in the hot water and add the diced vegetables, herbs, cloves, salt, pepper, and browning sauce.

  2. Simmer the mixture slowly for 2.5 to 3 hours.

  3. Once cooked, remove the oxtail pieces and keep them warm.

Thicken and serve

  1. Strain the soup and thicken it with flour mixed with a little cold water.

  2. Bring the soup to a boil for a few minutes, then pour it into a tureen and add the oxtail pieces back in.

  3. If you prefer a clear soup, omit the flour.

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 + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 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

Oxtail
Gives the soup its meaty flavour and rich body as it simmers.
Butter
Carries browning flavour from the initial searing of the oxtail and onion.
Flour
Thickens the strained soup so it becomes lightly body-rich rather than watery.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it browns with the oxtail.
Turnip
Contributes mild sweetness and soft texture to the simmered soup.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and colour to the simmered soup.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly. Gentle simmering over 2.5 to 3 hours breaks down collagen in the oxtail into gelatin, giving body. A rolling boil makes the broth cloudy and can toughen the meat.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, turnip, flour, carrot, onion, sauce, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, turnip, flour, carrot, onion, sauce, 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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