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Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made by simmering ox-tail in water with salt, pepper, and optional vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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-tail into pieces.

  2. Place the pieces in a pot and cover with water.

  3. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Simmer

  1. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for several hours until tender.

  2. Add vegetables if desired and cook until they are soft.

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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 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
Collagen in the connective tissue breaks down slowly during simmering, giving the meat tenderness and body to the broth.
Water
Forms the broth that extracts flavor and gelatin from the bones and meat.
Vegetables
Release sugars and aromatic compounds into the broth, adding sweetness and depth of flavor.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until tender. Boiling hard makes the meat tough and cloudy, while a slow simmer lets collagen convert to gelatin over several hours, which is what makes oxtail tender and the broth rich.

“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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