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Oxtail Soup

A hearty soup made with oxtail, water or stock, butter, sherry, lemon juice, celery, onion, herbs, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Oxtail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the oxtail into small pieces.

  2. Shred the onion and fry it with the oxtail pieces in the butter until browned.

Simmer

  1. Add the water or stock and bring to a simmer.

  2. Skim the surface well, then add the celery and herbs.

  3. Simmer gently for the entire day.

  4. Remove the vegetables and fat.

Finish

  1. Warm the sherry and add it along with the lemon juice.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  4. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Oxtail
Gives the soup its meaty body and rich flavour as it simmers.
Butter
Carries the frying of the onion and oxtail, helping them brown for deeper flavour.
Onion
Browns in the butter to add sweetness and savoury depth to the broth.
Sherry
Adds a fruity, aromatic note that rounds out the finished soup.
Lemon juice
Adds a little acidity that brightens the rich broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the surface. Fat and foam rise to the top as the soup simmers. Skimming them off well keeps the broth clear and stops it tasting greasy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, sherry, lemon, celery):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, sherry, lemon, 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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