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Ox- Tail Soup

A hearty soup made from ox tails, ham, vegetables, herbs, and seasonings, thickened with flour and flavored with ketchup and port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Ox- Tail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the ox-tails into pieces at the joints and wash them.

  2. In a large stewpan, melt the butter and add the ox-tails.

  3. Slice the vegetables and add them to the stewpan along with the peppercorns and herbs.

  4. Add 1 pint of water and stir over high heat until the juices are released.

Simmer

  1. Fill the stewpan with the remaining water and bring to a boil, then add the salt.

  2. Skim the surface and simmer gently for 4 hours, or until the tails are tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the tails, skim the soup, and strain it.

  2. Thicken the soup with flour and flavor it with ketchup and port wine.

  3. Return the tails to the soup, simmer for 5 minutes, 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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 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-tails
Release gelatin and meaty flavor into the broth during long simmering, giving body.
Butter
Fat that carries flavor and helps brown the tails at the start.
Onions
Build sweet, savoury depth as they soften and release their sugars into the broth.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body to the broth as they cook down.
Port wine
Adds sweetness, depth and a rich aroma to the finished soup.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness, acidity and a tangy savoury note to the soup.

The step that matters

Simmering gently for 4 hours. A gentle simmer lets collagen in the tails slowly break down into gelatin, giving body and tender meat. A rolling boil makes the broth cloudy and can toughen the meat, so skim the surface as it cooks.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, carrot, turnip, onion, leek, 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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