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Simple Oxtail Soup

A simple soup made by simmering oxtail with stock, onion, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Simple Oxtail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oxtail

  1. Cut the oxtail across at each joint and trim away the fat.

  2. Place the oxtail in a saucepan with cold water to blanch and bring to a boil.

  3. Strain the water and wipe the joints.

  4. Heat the butter in a pan and fry the oxtail until browned.

Make the soup

  1. Drain the butter, then add the stock or water, onion, salt, and pepper.

  2. Bring to a boil, skim, and simmer gently for three hours.

  3. Strain the soup and let it cool to remove all fat.

  4. Return the soup to the saucepan and bring to a boil.

Serve

  1. Serve with small joints of oxtail or add fine sago or vermicelli and cook until clear.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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 gelatinous body that gives the soup its rich flavour.
Butter
Fat used to brown the oxtail, adding roasted flavour and colour.
Stock or water
Forms the liquid base of the soup that the oxtail flavours during simmering.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness to the broth as it simmers.

The step that matters

Simmer gently after skimming. A rolling boil emulsifies fat and clouds the broth, while gentle simmering keeps it clear. Skimming removes impurities that rise at the start, and cooling before straining lets the remaining fat solidify so it can be lifted off.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper. 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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