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Ox Tail Soup

A hearty soup made with ox tail, vegetables, and a brown flour roux, finished with a strain.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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

Make the stock

  1. Cut the ox tail into pieces and fry in the butter until browned.

  2. Add the chopped vegetables, peppercorns, herbs, salt, water, and Liebig's Extract.

  3. Allow the soup to boil for three hours.

Thicken and strain

  1. In a clean saucepan, melt the remaining butter and add the flour, frying until brown.

  2. Add the browned flour mixture to the soup, bring to a boil, and then strain.

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. Shallot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together202 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 main meaty flavour and body as it simmers for hours.
Flour
Browned in butter, it thickens the soup and adds a toasted, nutty flavour.
Butter
Browns the ox tail and the flour, adding richness and roasted flavour.
Onions
Release sweetness and savoury depth into the broth as they cook.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and body to the broth.
Celery
Adds aromatic, savoury flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Browning the flour. Frying the flour in butter until brown toasts its starch, giving colour and a deeper flavour. If it is undercooked, the soup tastes raw and floury; if it burns, it turns bitter. Stir constantly and watch closely.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, shallot, butter, carrot, turnip, celery, clove):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, shallot, butter, carrot, turnip, celery, clove. 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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