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Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made from ox-tail, white wine, broth, pearl barley, and vegetables, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and barley work together. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 55 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Ox-tail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ox-tail

  1. Cut the ox-tail into pieces at the joints.

  2. Soak the pieces in cold water for 1-2 hours.

  3. Blanch the pieces for 10 minutes. Drain the pieces. Refresh the pieces.

Braise the meat

  1. Place the ox-tail in a stewpan with minced vegetables and aromatics.

  2. Moisten the ox-tail with white wine. Reduce the liquid to a glaze.

  3. Add broth to the stewpan. Braise the mixture for 4-5 hours.

  4. Drain the ox-tail. Keep the ox-tail warm.

Make the soup and serve

  1. Boil the cooking stock. Strain the stock. Skim off the fat from the stock.

  2. Mix the stock with jelly-broth. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Add pearl-barley to the soup.

  4. Garnish with a small amount of cooked vegetables.

  5. Serve the soup in a tureen and the meat separately.

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. White wine + barleytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together55 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Ox-tail
Provides the meat and gelatin-rich body that gives the soup its savoury richness.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth as it reduces into the braising base.
Pearl-barley
Thickens the soup slightly and adds a soft, starchy texture.
Jelly-broth
Forms the main liquid of the soup and carries its body and flavour.

The step that matters

Reduce the liquid to a glaze. If the wine is not reduced fully, its acidity and raw alcohol flavour remain in the braise. Reducing concentrates the flavour and lets the meat glaze, building a deeper savoury base for the soup.

“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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