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Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made with ox tail, lean beef, carrots, onions, celery, thyme, sherry, lemon, and browned flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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

Prepare the soup

  1. Skim off the fat from the cold soup.

  2. The next day, cut the pressed meat into dice.

  3. Flavor the soup with sherry and lemon juice, then simmer with the meat for 30 minutes.

  4. If using egg balls, add them one minute before serving.

Brown and simmer

  1. Cut the ox tail into pieces and fry in butter until browned.

  2. Slice the onions and carrots, then brown them in the same pan.

  3. Tie the browned onions and carrots in a bag with thyme and add to the soup pot.

  4. Add the pieces of ox tail and the diced meat to the pot.

  5. Grate the remaining carrots over the mixture and add four quarts of cold water, along with pepper and salt.

  6. Boil for four to six hours, depending on the size of the tail.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the soup fifteen minutes before serving and thicken with browned flour.

  2. Boil for an additional ten minutes.

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. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Thyme + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,193 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox tail
Releases collagen during long simmering, giving the soup a rich, full body.
Lean beef
Adds meaty flavor, and its browned surfaces deepen the savoriness of the broth.
Browned flour
Starch thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the soup a fuller texture.
Sherry
Adds aromatic depth and a mild acidity that brightens the broth.
Onions
Browning caramelizes their sugars, adding sweetness and savory depth.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body to the broth as they cook.

The step that matters

Thickening with browned flour. Flour starch only thickens fully when heated in liquid. Stirring it in smoothly and keeping the soup simmering lets the starch swell evenly, avoiding lumps and a thin, uneven texture.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, onion, thyme, celery, sherry, flour):

  1. Limefits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Avocadofits about as well
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, onion, thyme, celery, sherry, flour. 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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