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Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made with ox-tail, vegetables, and seasonings simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Ox-tail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the meat

  1. Dredge the ox-tail pieces in flour and fry in butter until browned.

Brown the vegetables

  1. In the same butter, fry the carrots, turnip, onions, celery, mushrooms, and garlic until browned.

Simmer the soup

  1. Combine the fried ox-tail and vegetables in a stew pan.

  2. Add water, salt, sugar, mustard, black pepper, and peppercorns.

  3. Boil quickly, skim off any foam, then simmer for 1 hour.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox-tail
Flour-dredged and browned in butter, it builds meaty flavour and body as it simmers.
Butter
Frying fat that browns the meat and vegetables, adding richness and savoury flavour.
Onions
Browned and simmered, they add sweetness and depth to the broth.
Carrots
Browned and simmered, they contribute natural sweetness and body to the broth.

The step that matters

Skim off the foam after boiling. Foam is coagulated protein and impurities rising from the meat. Skimming it keeps the broth clear and free of a bitter, greasy taste.

Swap the garlic

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, carrot, turnip, onion, celery, mushroom, sugar. 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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