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Another Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made with ox tails, stock, carrots, turnips, and onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Another Ox-tail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tails

  1. Cut the ox tails into pieces.

  2. Soak them in cold water.

Make the soup

  1. Boil the ox tails in 3-4 quarts of well-seasoned rich brown stock.

  2. Add 1½ cups each of diced carrots, turnips, and onions.

  3. Simmer until everything is tender.

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 + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Ox tails
Their connective tissue breaks down into gelatin during simmering, giving the soup body and richness.
Rich brown stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavor and keeps the soup moist.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and soft, tender pieces to the soup.
Turnips
Add a mild sweetness and firm, tender pieces that hold their shape.
Onions
Build a savory aroma and depth as they soften in the broth.

The step that matters

Simmer until everything is tender. Ox tail is tough connective tissue. It needs a long, gentle simmer to break down into gelatin. Cooking too briskly or stopping early leaves the meat chewy and the soup thin.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip. 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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