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Ox Tail Soup, Thick

A thick ox tail soup simmered for five hours with vegetables and seasoned with ketchup, Harvey's sauce, and browning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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, Thick

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the meat

  1. In a pan, melt the butter and brown the ox tail joints.

  2. Pour off the fat and add the water; bring to a boil.

Simmer the soup

  1. Stir in the salt and remove any scum from the surface.

  2. Add the turnip, carrot, onion, celery, parsley, thyme, and pepper.

  3. Simmer slowly for five hours.

Thicken and serve

  1. Mix the rice flour with a little ketchup, Harvey's sauce, and browning.

  2. Add this mixture to the soup and boil for two minutes.

  3. Serve with the small joints of tail in the 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. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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 flavour and body as it simmers for hours.
Rice flour
Thickens the soup slightly when boiled with the liquid.
Turnip
Adds earthy sweetness and body to the broth during long simmering.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and colour to the broth.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Removing the scum from the surface. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise as the liquid heats. Skimming it early keeps the broth clear and free of bitter or off flavours during the long simmer.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, turnip, carrot, celery, parsley, thyme, 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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