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Oxtail Soup

A hearty soup made with oxtail, vegetables, herbs, and a roux, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Oxtail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and simmer

  1. Cut the oxtail into joints, wash thoroughly, and dry with a cloth. Blanch if very dirty, but this may reduce flavor.

  2. Melt 1 oz. of butter in a large saucepan over medium heat, add the sliced vegetables and oxtail, and fry for about 10 minutes without burning.

  3. Add the herbs, spices, stock, and a little salt. Bring to a boil, skim, and simmer for 3.5 hours.

  4. Strain the soup into a basin and let it cool to remove the fat.

Make the thickened soup

  1. In another saucepan, melt the remaining 3 oz. of butter, add the flour, and fry until golden brown.

  2. Pour in the strained stock (after removing the fat) and stir until boiling.

  3. Simmer gently for about 15 minutes.

  4. Strain again if necessary.

Serve

  1. Serve with smaller pieces of oxtail and diced carrot and turnip boiled separately in the soup.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Oxtail
Provides the meat and collagen that give the soup its rich body and flavor.
Butter
Carries the frying of vegetables and oxtail and forms the base of the roux.
Flour
Cooked in butter to form a roux that thickens the stock.
Onion
Softens and browns while frying, adding sweetness and savory depth.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and aroma as it fries and simmers in the stock.

The step that matters

Frying the flour to a golden roux. Cooking flour in butter until golden removes its raw taste and helps it thicken smoothly. Adding the stock while stirring until boiling keeps lumps from forming.

Swap the turnip

The recipe marks turnip as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, carrot, onion, clove, mace, celery, allspice):

  1. Turnipthe original
  2. Parsnipfits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Mustardfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, carrot, onion, clove, mace, celery, allspice. 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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