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Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made with ox tails, ham, vegetables, herbs, catsup, port wine, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 tails into pieces at the joints.

  2. Wash the ox tails.

  3. In a large stewpan, melt the butter.

  4. Add the ox tails to the melted butter.

  5. Slice the vegetables.

  6. Add the sliced vegetables along with the herbs to the stewpan.

  7. Pour in ½ cup of water.

  8. Cook over high heat until the juices are released.

Simmer the soup

  1. Fill the stewpan with water.

  2. Bring the water to a boil.

  3. Add the salt.

  4. Skim the surface.

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

  6. Remove the tails from the stewpan.

  7. Skim the soup.

  8. Strain the soup.

Finish and serve

  1. Thicken the soup with flour.

  2. Add the catsup.

  3. Add the port wine.

  4. Return the tails to the soup.

  5. Simmer for 5 minutes.

  6. Serve.

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
Break down into rich, gelatinous body as they simmer for hours.
Butter
Fat that browns the ox-tails and carries the flavour of the vegetables.
Onions
Sweetness and savoury depth as they soften into the broth.
Carrots
Natural sweetness and colour in the finished broth.
Port wine
Adds sweetness, depth and aroma to the finished soup.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the strained soup to a fuller body.

The step that matters

Skim the surface. Foam and fat rise as the broth heats and simmers. Skimming removes impurities that would make the soup cloudy and greasy, so keep the liquid at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, carrot, turnip, leek, celery, 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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