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Thick Ox Tail Soup

A thick soup made from ox tail, stock, onion, butter, and seasonings, finished with mushroom ketchup and port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Thick Ox Tail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tail

  1. Wipe the ox tail and cut it into joints.

  2. Fry the joints in 2 tablespoons of butter.

  3. Add the sliced onion and fry until pale brown.

  4. Add the stock, cloves, and peppercorns.

  5. Stew gently for 4 hours.

  6. Remove the tail.

  7. Strain the stock.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the remaining butter in the pan.

  2. Add flour and glaze.

  3. Gradually stir in the stock.

  4. Add pepper, salt, mushroom ketchup, and gravy coloring.

  5. Boil for 5 minutes.

  6. Add pieces of the tail and the port wine.

  7. Serve.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  4. Clove + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,663 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Port wine + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together570 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 meaty body and rich flavor as it stews slowly.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth, lightly body-filled soup when cooked with butter.
Butter
Fat that carries flavor and helps brown the joints and onion before stewing.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma as it browns in the fat.
Port wine
Adds sweetness, depth and a fruity note to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Gradually stir in the stock. Adding liquid slowly to the flour and butter mixture lets the starch disperse evenly, preventing lumps and giving a smooth, well-thickened soup.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, port wine, clove, pepper, flour, mushroom, ketchup):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, port wine, clove, pepper, flour, mushroom, ketchup. 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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