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Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made by simmering ox tails with onion, carrot, and spices for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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

  1. Divide the ox tails at the joints and soak them in warm water.

  2. Place the tails in a soup pot with 2 quarts of cold water.

Make the soup

  1. Skim the surface carefully.

  2. Add the chopped onion and carrot.

  3. Season with spices and sweet herbs to taste.

  4. Boil for 3 to 4 hours.

  5. When the meat is boiled to shreds, remove the bones.

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. 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
Provide meat, fat and collagen that enrich the broth as they simmer.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma to the broth as it cooks.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and body to the broth.

The step that matters

Skim the surface carefully. Fat and foam rise to the top during simmering. Skimming them removes impurities and excess grease, giving a clearer, cleaner-tasting broth.

“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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