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Ox-heel Soup

A hearty soup made from ox heels, vegetables, herbs, and a butter‑flour roux.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Ox-heel Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Prepare the ox-heel the day before serving.

  2. Cut the meat off the boiled heels into bite-sized pieces and set aside.

  3. In a stew-pan, combine the trimmings, bones, water, and unboiled heel cut into quarters.

  4. Add onions, turnips, carrots, eschalots, thyme, and parsley.

  5. Cover and simmer gently for at least 7 hours, skimming off fat and scum.

  6. Strain the liquid through a sieve.

Thicken and finish

  1. In a clean stew-pan, melt the butter and stir in enough flour to make a stiff paste.

  2. Gradually add the soup liquid to the paste, bring to a boil, and strain again.

  3. Add the lemon peel, bay leaves, and reserved meat.

  4. Simmer for another 30 minutes until the meat is tender.

  5. Stir in the lemon juice, wine, and mushroom ketchup 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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox-heel
Breaks down during long simmering to give the soup body and rich, gelatinous mouthfeel.
Butter
Melts with flour to form a roux that thickens the soup liquid and adds richness.
Flour
Combined with butter to form a paste that thickens the stock as it is added.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the rich broth.
Wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the finished soup.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds savoury, umami depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming during the long simmer. Fat and scum rise to the surface during the long simmer and, if left in, make the broth greasy and cloudy. Skimming keeps the soup clear and clean-tasting before it is strained and thickened.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, carrot, lemon, parsley, butter, flour, wine):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, carrot, lemon, parsley, butter, flour, wine. 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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