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Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made with ox tails, ham, vegetables, and seasonings, thickened with flour and finished with catsup and port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Ox-tail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

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

  2. Wash the ox-tails.

  3. Melt the butter in a stewpan.

  4. Add the ox-tails.

  5. Chop the vegetables.

  6. Add the vegetables along with the herbs.

  7. Add ½ pint of water.

  8. Stir over high heat until the juices are released.

Make the soup

  1. Fill the stewpan with water.

  2. Bring to a boil.

  3. Add the salt.

  4. Skim the surface.

  5. Simmer gently for 4 hours until the tails are tender.

  6. Remove the tails.

  7. Skim the soup.

  8. Strain it.

Finish and serve

  1. Thicken the soup with flour.

  2. Add the catsup and port wine.

  3. Return the tails to the soup.

  4. Simmer for 5 minutes.

  5. 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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 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 + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox-tails
Release gelatin and rich meaty flavour into the broth during long simmering, while becoming tender.
Butter
Fat that carries flavour and helps begin browning the ox-tails and vegetables.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth as they soften and brown in the stock.
Flour (in the method)
Starch that thickens the strained soup to a fuller body.
Port wine
Adds sweetness, depth and aroma to the finished soup.
Ham
Contributes salty, smoky meat flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Skim the surface during the simmer. Proteins and fat rise as foam and scum during simmering; removing them keeps the broth clear and stops it tasting greasy or muddy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, carrot, turnip, leek, 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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