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Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made from ox tails simmered with vegetables and herbs, thickened with arrowroot or rice flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and arrowroot share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 64 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Ox-tail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Wash and soak the ox-tails.

  2. Pour cold water over the tails and bring to a boil gradually.

  3. Add salt and skim off any scum that forms.

  4. Once scum ceases to rise, add carrots, onions, herbs, celery, turnips, cloves, and peppercorns.

  5. Stew gently for 3 to 3.5 hours, depending on the size of the tails.

Strain and finish

  1. Remove the tails, strain the broth, and skim off the fat.

  2. Cut the meat from the tails and return it to the stock.

  3. When the stock begins to boil, stir in a thickening of arrowroot or rice flour mixed with cayenne and salt to taste.

  4. Serve the soup very hot.

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 + arrowroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together64 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  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. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox-tails
Supply the meat and gelatin that give the broth body and richness.
Arrowroot or rice flour
Starch that thickens the broth as it heats, giving it a smooth body.
Onions
Build savory depth and sweetness as they slowly stew in the broth.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body to the stock during the long stew.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum. Scum rising during the first boil contains coagulated proteins and impurities; removing it early keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, celery, turnip, clove, arrowroot, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, turnip, clove, arrowroot, pepper. 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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