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Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made with ox-tail, ham, vegetables, herbs, and a splash of port wine, finished with ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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-tail into pieces and brown in butter.

  2. Add chopped ham, carrot, turnip, onions, leek, and celery.

Simmer

  1. Pour in water (or water and port wine) and bring to a boil.

  2. Add herbs, bay leaf, cloves, peppercorns, and salt.

  3. Simmer for several hours until the meat is tender.

Strain and serve

  1. Strain the soup and serve hot, adding ketchup to taste.

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-tail
Provides meat and gelatin, which gives the broth body and a rich mouthfeel as it cooks.
Butter
Browns the meat and adds fat and roasted flavour to the base of the soup.
Onions
Break down during simmering to add sweetness and depth to the broth.
Ham
Adds salty, smoky meat flavour that seasons the broth as it simmers.
Port wine
Adds sweetness, acidity and fruity depth to the liquid, if used.

The step that matters

Brown the ox-tail in butter. Browning creates Maillard flavour compounds that carry into the broth. Pale, steamed meat yields a flatter, less savoury soup, so the pieces should be well coloured before liquid is added.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Lettucefits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, carrot, turnip, port wine, butter, 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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