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Ox- Tail Soup

A hearty soup made with ox tails, gravy beef, ham bone, root vegetables, herbs, and optional wine or ketchup.

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

  1. Cut the ox-tails into joints.

  2. In a large pot, combine the ox-tails, gravy beef, ham bone, carrots, turnips, celery, onions, bread crust, sweet herbs, cloves, and peppercorns.

Simmer

  1. Add enough water to cover the ingredients and boil gently for several hours.

  2. Remove the ox-tails when tender and continue boiling the beef and vegetables for 4 more hours.

Finish the soup

  1. Strain the broth and remove the fat as you would for clear gravy soup.

  2. If not using ham bones, add ketchup or prepared sauces, a glass of wine, and cayenne to taste.

  3. Return the ox-tails to the pot along with some carrot and turnip cut into fancy shapes.

  4. For a thicker soup, thicken the broth with brown roux before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 flavour into the broth as they simmer, giving body.
Gravy beef
Adds rich beefy flavour and depth to the broth during long simmering.
Ham bone
Contributes savoury, smoky depth to the stock as it simmers.
Brown roux
Thickens the broth and adds a toasted, nutty colour and flavour.

The step that matters

Simmer gently rather than boiling hard. A gentle simmer extracts flavour and collagen from the bones and meat while keeping the broth clear. Vigorous boiling emulsifies fat into the liquid and makes the soup cloudy and greasy.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, ham, carrot, turnip, celery, onion, bread):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, ham, carrot, turnip, celery, onion, bread. 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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