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Soup

Ox Tail

A hearty soup made from ox tails simmered with vegetables and consommé.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and soak the ox tails in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Remove the tails and cut them into 1‑inch lengths.

Make the soup

  1. In a stewpan, combine the tails, consommé, carrots, onions, turnip, salt, and celery.

  2. Let the mixture stew until the tails are tender.

  3. Remove the tails, strain the soup through a cloth, and let it cool.

  4. Remove all fat and grease, and clarify if necessary.

  5. Cut the carrots and celery into shapes.

  6. Return the tails and cut vegetables to the soup, bring to a boil, and serve.

  7. Add salt and sugar to taste.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 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
Release gelatin and meaty flavour into the broth as they stew until tender.
Consommé
Provides the main liquid and concentrated savoury beef flavour of the soup.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body to the broth while holding their shape when cut.
Onions
Contribute savoury depth and aroma as they soften and release sugars during stewing.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and earthy flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Remove all fat and grease before serving. Fat that is not skimmed after cooling forms a greasy layer and can make the soup taste heavy. Chilling and skimming the cooled liquid removes most of it cleanly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, celery. 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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