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Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made by simmering ox tail with onion, carrot, celery, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 the ox-tail

  1. Cut the ox-tail at each joint and fry in butter or dripping for 5 minutes.

  2. Remove the meat and place it in a warmed soup kettle.

  3. Fry the sliced onion in the remaining fat and pour it over the ox-tail.

  4. Rinse the frying pan with hot water and add it to the soup kettle.

Simmer

  1. Cover with 2 quarts of cold water.

  2. Add the sliced carrot and minced celery.

  3. Cover closely and simmer for 5 hours.

  4. Season to taste.

  5. Let the soup sit overnight.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the fat.

  2. Strain the liquid from the meat and vegetables.

  3. Pick out the best joints and return them to the soup.

  4. Heat the soup to a fast boil and skim the surface.

  5. Add kitchen bouquet to taste.

  6. Serve.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 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
Gives the soup its meaty body and rich, savoury flavour as it simmers.
Butter or good dripping
Fat that browns the ox-tail, building deeper flavour before the liquid is added.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savoury aroma once fried and carried into the broth.
Carrot
Contributes mild sweetness and body to the broth during the long simmer.
Celery
Adds aromatic, savoury depth to the broth during the long simmer.

The step that matters

Simmer closely covered for 5 hours. A gentle, covered simmer draws collagen and flavour from the bones into the water without boiling away liquid. A hard boil makes the broth cloudy and greasy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, carrot, celery, pepper. 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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