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Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made with ox tails, carrots, onions, and stock, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,873 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Ox-tail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ox-tails

  1. Cut the ox-tails at the joints into pieces of similar size.

  2. Soak the pieces in cold water with a little salt for 2 hours to remove blood.

  3. Drain and dry the ox-tails with a clean cloth.

Make the soup

  1. In a 3-quart stewpan, melt the butter and brown the ox-tails with a few pieces of lean beef.

  2. Add the stock or water, the onion with cloves, and the bouquet garni.

  3. Bring to a boil, then skim the surface.

  4. Simmer for 3 to 4 hours until the meat easily comes off the bones.

  5. In the meantime, cook the sliced carrots and button onions in a little stock until tender.

Serve

  1. Remove the ox-tail pieces from the soup, discard the bones, and place the meat in a tureen with the carrots and onions.

  2. Strain the soup over the meat and serve.

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + clovetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,045 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox-tails
Collagen-rich connective tissue breaks down during long simmering, giving the soup body and tender meat.
Butter
Browns the ox-tails and adds richness and aroma to the soup.
Stock or water
Forms the liquid base that extracts flavor and gelatin from the meat and bones.
Young carrots
Add natural sweetness and a tender texture to the finished soup.
Button onions
Add mild sweetness and soft texture as they cook in the broth.

The step that matters

Simmer for 3 to 4 hours until the meat easily comes off the bones. Collagen in the ox-tails converts to gelatin only over long, gentle simmering. Cooking too hard can toughen the meat and cloud the broth, while stopping early leaves the meat chewy and the soup thin.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, butter. 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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