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Soup

Ox-tail Sour

A sour ox tail soup made with ox tails, bullock's liver, port wine, soy sauce, and vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and port wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,499 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Ox-tail Sour

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Stew the jointed ox tails in 3 quarts of cold water for 4 hours.

  2. Add the bullock's liver, cut into 3 thick slices, and fry in a little butter or dripping.

  3. Add the same vegetables as for giblet-soup and 2 bay leaves.

Chill and clarify

  1. Make the soup a day in advance to allow fat to rise and be skimmed off.

  2. After stewing, strain the soup and remove the meat from the bones.

Finish and serve

  1. When ready to serve, add the meat back to the soup with 2 glasses of port wine and 2 teaspoons of soy sauce.

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. Butter + port winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Liver + port winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together108 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Liver + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Liver + saucetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together499 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Ox tails
Break down slowly during stewing to release gelatin and flavour into the soup.
Bullock's liver
Fried first, it adds a rich, savoury depth to the soup's flavour.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and fruity depth to the finished soup.
Soy sauce
Adds savoury, salty depth that rounds out the soup's flavour.

The step that matters

Chilling the soup a day ahead. Fat solidifies on cooling and forms a layer on top, so it can be lifted off cleanly. Skimming before reheating keeps the soup from tasting greasy.

“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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