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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 tails

  1. Wash the ox tails and soak the ox tails.

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

  3. Add salt.

  4. Skim off any scum that forms and wait until scum ceases to rise.

Make the soup

  1. Add carrots, onions, herbs, celery, turnips, cloves, and peppercorns.

  2. Stew gently for 3 to 3½ hours.

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

  4. Cut the meat from the tails and return the meat to the stock.

Thicken and serve

  1. Wait until the stock begins to boil.

  2. Stir in a thickening of arrowroot or rice flour mixed with cayenne and salt to taste.

  3. Serve 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. 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

Ox-tails
Release gelatin and meaty flavor into the broth during long, gentle stewing.
Arrowroot or rice flour
Thickens the broth when heated, giving it a smoother body.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth to the stock as they cook slowly.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body to the broth during stewing.
Celery
Adds aromatic savory flavor to the stock during stewing.

The step that matters

Skim off the scum as it forms. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise as the water heats. Removing it before it sinks back in 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):

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

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