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Ox-tail Soup with Vegetables

A soup made with ox tail, potatoes, onions, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Ox-tail Soup with Vegetables

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the ox-tail by cleaning it thoroughly.

Make the soup

  1. Boil the ox-tail in water for 2 hours.

  2. Skim off all the fat from the broth.

  3. Add the sliced potatoes and onions to the pot.

  4. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  5. Cook until the vegetables are tender, then serve without straining.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 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

Ox-tail
Simmers into the broth, giving it its main meaty flavour and body.
Potatoes
Soften during cooking and thicken the broth as their starch releases.
Onions
Soften and turn sweet as they cook, adding savoury depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Skim off all the fat from the broth. Fat that is left in the broth floats on top and can make the soup greasy and heavy on the palate. Removing it before adding vegetables gives a cleaner, lighter result.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, 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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