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Ox Tail Soup, Clear

A clear soup made with ox tail, carrots, onion, celery, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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, Clear

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Put the ox tail into a pan with the clear stock and add the seasonings.

  2. Add the chopped carrots, onion, and celery to the pan.

  3. Remove any scum that rises to the surface.

  4. Allow to simmer for two hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the soup and serve.

  2. If the soup is not clear, clarify it as directed for clear soup.

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. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  5. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 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
Gives the soup its main body and meaty flavour as it simmers slowly in the stock.
Clear stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour of every other ingredient.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and aroma to the broth as they soften.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma to the broth during simmering.
Celery
Contributes subtle aromatic flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Removing the scum. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise as the liquid heats. Skimming it as it forms keeps the soup clear and free of off-flavours, which is the point of a clear soup.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, onion, clove, parsley, thyme, celery):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, clove, parsley, thyme, celery. 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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