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Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made with ox tail, lean beef, carrots, onions, celery, sherry, lemon, and optional prunes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Ox-tail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Start the soup

  1. Skim off the fat from the cold soup.

  2. Cut the pressed meat into dice.

  3. Flavor the soup with sherry and lemon juice.

  4. Simmer with the meat for 30 minutes.

  5. Add egg balls 1 minute before serving (if using).

Prepare the ox-tail and vegetables

  1. Cut the ox-tail into pieces.

  2. Fry the pieces in butter until browned.

  3. Slice the onions and carrots.

  4. Brown the sliced onions and carrots in the same pan.

  5. Tie the browned onions and carrots in a bag with thyme and add to the soup pot.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the pieces of ox-tail and diced meat to the pot.

  2. Grate the whole carrots over the mixture.

  3. Add cold water, salt, and pepper.

  4. Boil for 4 to 6 hours, depending on the size of the tail.

  5. Strain the soup 15 minutes before serving.

  6. Thicken with browned flour.

  7. Boil for an additional 10 minutes.

Pheasant stock with leeks

  1. Skin and cut up a pheasant to make a stock.

  2. Cut up the leeks.

  3. Parboil the leeks for 10 minutes.

  4. Add the leeks to the stock gradually.

  5. Let it simmer for 3 hours, adding salt and pepper to taste.

  6. Drop 2 prunes into each bowl of soup before serving, if desired.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Thyme + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,193 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox-tail
Releases gelatin during long simmering, giving the soup body and a rich mouthfeel.
Lean beef
Contributes savory meaty flavor and tender pieces to the finished soup.
Onions
Browning them builds sweet, deep aromatic flavor in the broth.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body to the soup as they cook down.
Browned flour
Starch thickens the liquid, giving the soup a fuller, smoother texture.
Sherry
Adds aromatic depth and a slight sweetness that rounds out the broth.

The step that matters

Thicken with browned flour. Flour must be well dispersed in the hot liquid and kept simmering so its starch swells and thickens evenly. Without enough heat and stirring, it forms lumps and leaves a raw, floury taste.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, thyme, celery, pepper, sherry, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, thyme, celery, pepper, sherry, lemon. 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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