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Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made with ox-tail, vegetables, ham or bacon, stock, and seasonings, thickened with cornflour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Ox-tail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ox-tail

  1. Cut the ox-tail into small joints and place them in a stewpan.

  2. Cover the joints with cold water, bring the water to a boil, then strain the water.

  3. Dry the pieces of ox-tail, then roll the pieces in flour.

Brown and simmer

  1. Add the floured ox-tail to the stewpan with the ham, chopped vegetables, and butter, and fry until browned.

  2. Add the stock, bouquet garni, peppercorns, cloves, and salt to the stewpan.

  3. Boil and skim well, then cover and cook gently for about 4 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the soup and remove the fat, then return the strained soup to the stewpan.

  2. When the soup is boiling, add the sherry (if using) and cornflour mixed smoothly with a little water, then stir and cook for a few minutes.

  3. Serve the smaller pieces of ox-tail in the soup.

  4. Reheat the remaining pieces in a good brown sauce and serve as an entrée.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox-tail
Gives the soup its rich meaty flavour and body as it simmers for hours.
Butter or good fat
Carries flavour and helps the floured meat and vegetables brown during frying.
Cornflour
Thickens the strained soup so it has a smoother, slightly fuller body.
Lean ham or bacon
Adds salty, savoury depth that boosts the overall meaty flavour.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it softens and browns with the other vegetables.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic richness to finish the soup.

The step that matters

Fry the floured ox-tail until browned. Browning creates Maillard flavours that deepen the soup's savoury taste. Pale, under-fried meat gives a flatter, less rich broth, so the pieces need proper colour before the liquid goes in.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, celery, butter, ham, parsley, thyme):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, celery, butter, ham, parsley, thyme. 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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