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Ox Heel Soup

A hearty soup made with ox heel, vegetables, herbs, and a butter‑flour roux, finished with lemon, wine, and mushroom catsup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Ox Heel Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Cut the meat off the boiled heels into small bits and set aside.

  2. Place the trimmings and bones in a stewpan with water and the unboiled heel cut into quarters.

  3. Add onions, turnips, carrots, shallots, thyme, and parsley.

  4. Cover and simmer gently for 7 hours, skimming off any scum that rises.

  5. Strain the liquid through a sieve.

Thicken and finish

  1. Melt butter in a clean stewpan, stir in enough flour to make a stiff paste.

  2. Gradually add the strained soup to the paste, bring to a boil, and strain again.

  3. Add lemon peel, bay leaves, and the reserved meat, then simmer for another 30 minutes.

  4. Stir in lemon juice, wine, and mushroom catsup 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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together202 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 heel
Releases gelatin and collagen into the stock, giving the soup body and a rich mouthfeel.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the strained soup into a smoother, more substantial liquid.
Onions, turnips, carrots, shallots
Add sweetness and savory depth as they simmer into the stock.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich broth.
Wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Adding the strained soup to the roux. Pour the liquid in gradually while stirring so the flour disperses without lumps; adding it all at once can leave clumps that a second straining only partly removes. Bringing it to a boil then lets the flour starch swell and thicken the soup.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, carrot, shallot, lemon, parsley, butter, flour):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, carrot, shallot, lemon, parsley, butter, 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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