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Ox-Head Soup

A soup made from a bullock's head and cow-heel with peas, carrots, turnips, onions, parsley, celery seed, pepper, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Ox-Head Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Clean the bullock's head and cow-heel, rub them with salt, then soak them in salt and lukewarm water for 4 hours.

  2. Wash them well.

Make the broth

  1. Place them in a large pot with 7 quarts of water and 1 tablespoon of coarse sea salt.

  2. Skim carefully. Add 1 quart of cold water to retard boiling and remove more scum.

  3. Remove the meat when tender.

  4. Strain the broth.

  5. Remove the fat layer from the cold broth.

Finish the soup

  1. Add 1 pound of peas to the broth and boil for 1 hour.

  2. Add the chopped carrots, turnips, onions, parsley, and celery seed tied in muslin.

  3. Season with pepper and cayenne.

  4. Boil 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.

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

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

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bullock's head
Gives the soup its body and rich, gelatin-based flavour as it simmers.
Cow-heel
Adds gelatin, which gives the broth a fuller, silkier body.
Peas
Thicken the broth as they break down and add starchy sweetness.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and aroma to the broth as they cook down.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and color while holding their shape in the soup.
Turnips
Add a mild, slightly peppery sweetness and body to the soup.

The step that matters

Skim carefully and remove the fat layer. Scum and fat rising from the meat would make the broth cloudy and greasy. Skimming early and chilling the broth lets fat solidify on top so it can be lifted off cleanly.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, onion, parsley, celery, pepper):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, onion, parsley, celery, 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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