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Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made from ox tails, ham, vegetables, and seasonings, simmered for hours and thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 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 the ox-tails

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

  2. Melt the butter in a large pot and add the ox-tails.

  3. Pour in 1 pint of water and cook over high heat until the juices are drawn.

Make the soup

  1. Add the remaining water and bring the mixture to a boil.

  2. Stir in the coarse sea salt and skim off any foam.

  3. Add the sliced carrots, turnips, onions, leek, celery, and savory herbs.

  4. Simmer gently for 4 hours, or until the tails are tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the ox-tails from the pot and skim the soup.

  2. Strain the soup and thicken it with flour.

  3. Flavor the soup with ketchup and port wine.

  4. Return the ox-tails to the pot.

  5. Simmer for an additional 5 minutes before serving.

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
Provide meat, collagen and body that gives the soup its rich flavor when simmered.
Butter
Browns the ox-tails in fat, building savory flavor at the start of the soup.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the broth as they soften during the long simmer.
Onions
Release sugars and savory depth into the broth as they cook slowly.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the strained soup so it has a fuller, more velvety texture.
Port wine
Adds sweetness, acidity and deep aroma to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Skim off any foam. Foam and impurities rising early can cloud the broth and carry off-flavors. Skimming keeps the soup clear and clean-tasting.

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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