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Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made with ox tail, vegetables, butter, and herbs, simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Ox-tail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ox-tail

  1. Cut the ox-tail into pieces at the joints.

  2. Place the ox-tail pieces in a stewpan.

  3. Cover the stewpan with cold water.

  4. Bring the water to a boil.

  5. Boil for 5 minutes.

  6. Strain the ox-tail pieces.

  7. Dry the ox-tail pieces with a clean cloth.

  8. Return the ox-tail to the stewpan with ½ cup of butter.

Build the soup

  1. Wash, scrape, and cut 1 carrot in half.

  2. Add the carrot to the stewpan.

  3. Peel the onion and stick 6 cloves into it.

  4. Add the onion to the stewpan.

  5. Wash the celery.

  6. Trim the green tops of the celery.

  7. Add the celery to the stewpan.

  8. Add 12 peppercorns to the stewpan.

  9. Add the bouquet garni to the stewpan.

  10. Cover the stewpan.

  11. Cook over medium heat for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  12. Add 2 quarts of cold water to the stewpan.

  13. Add 1 teaspoon of salt to the stewpan.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 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-tail
Provides the meat and gelatin that give the soup its body and rich flavour.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavour and rounds out the richness of the broth.
Carrots
Contribute sweetness and aromatic flavour to the broth as they cook.

The step that matters

Boiling the ox-tail before simmering. Brief boiling then straining removes scum and impurities from the meat, which keeps the finished soup clear and cleanly flavoured.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, carrot, turnip, clove, celery, flour, 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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