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Ox Heel Soup

A hearty soup made from ox heels, vegetables, herbs, and lemon, thickened with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and carrot 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 ↓

Ox Heel Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup

  1. Obtain 3 or 4 partially boiled ox heels from a tripe shop.

  2. In a pot, combine the heels with 1 quart of water or broth.

  3. Add the chopped onion, shallot, turnip, carrot, and sweet herbs.

  4. Cover and simmer slowly for several hours, skimming off fat as it rises.

  5. Once the meat is tender, remove the heels and strain the soup.

  6. Cut the meat from the heels and return it to the soup.

Thicken and flavour

  1. Thicken the soup with flour and butter.

  2. Add the lemon rind and bay leaves, simmer for 30 minutes, then remove the bay leaves.

  3. Stir in the lemon juice, wine, and mushroom ketchup.

  4. If using, add the tripe and simmer for an additional 30 minutes.

  5. Optionally, stir in boiled rice 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. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Shallot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together202 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox heels
Release gelatin and collagen over long simmering, giving the soup body and a rich mouthfeel.
Flour and butter
Form a roux that thickens the strained broth into a smoother, heavier consistency.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich broth and balances its savoury flavour.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savoury, umami depth to the broth.
Onion, shallot, turnip, and carrot
Build the aromatic base, adding sweetness and flavour to the broth as they simmer.

The step that matters

Skimming fat during the long simmer. Fat rising to the surface would make the soup greasy and cloudy. Skimming as it rises keeps the broth clean and clear before thickening.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, onion, shallot, turnip, carrot, flour, butter. 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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