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Oxtail Soup

A hearty soup made with oxtail, vegetables, herbs, spices, and a roux, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Oxtail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oxtail

  1. Cut the oxtail into joints, wash thoroughly, and dry with a cloth.

  2. Blanch if very dirty, but this may reduce flavor.

Make the stock

  1. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a large saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Add sliced vegetables and oxtail; fry for about 10 minutes without burning.

  3. Add herbs, spices, stock, and a little salt.

  4. Bring to a boil, skim, and simmer for 3.5 hours.

  5. Strain into a basin and let cool to remove fat.

Make the soup

  1. In another saucepan, melt the remaining butter.

  2. Add flour, and fry until golden brown.

  3. Pour in the strained stock (after removing fat) and stir until boiling.

  4. Simmer gently for 15 minutes.

  5. Strain again if necessary.

Serve

  1. Serve with smaller pieces of oxtail and diced carrot and turnip boiled separately in the soup.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  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 + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Oxtail
Provides rich meat flavor and body as it simmers into the stock.
Butter
Carries flavor during frying and adds richness to the soup.
Flour
Browned in butter, it thickens the soup and adds a toasted flavor.
Onion
Frying softens and sweetens it, building the savory base of the stock.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and aroma to the stock as it cooks.

The step that matters

Frying the flour until golden brown. Cooking flour in fat until golden develops nutty flavor and thickens the soup smoothly. Stop too early and it tastes raw and pasty; too far and it turns bitter. Stir constantly over moderate heat.

Swap the turnip

The recipe marks turnip as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, carrot, onion, clove, mace, celery, allspice):

  1. Turnipthe original
  2. Parsnipfits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Mustardfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, carrot, onion, clove, mace, celery, allspice. 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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