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Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made with ox tails, ham, vegetables, 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-tail pieces.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a large stewpan.

  2. Add the chopped vegetables and herbs to the stewpan.

  3. Stir in ½ cup of water.

  4. Cook over high heat until the vegetables soften.

  5. Add the ox-tails to the stewpan.

  6. Fill the stewpan with water, bringing it to a boil.

  7. Stir in the salt.

  8. Simmer gently for 4 hours, or until the tails are tender.

  9. Remove the tails from the pot.

  10. Skim the soup.

  11. Strain the soup.

  12. Return the tails to the pot.

  13. Add the catsup and port wine.

  14. Simmer for an additional 5 minutes.

Serve

  1. 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
Slow simmering breaks down connective tissue, releasing gelatin that gives the soup body and richness.
Onions
Their sugars and flavour compounds build the savoury base of the soup as they soften.
Carrots
Release natural sugars during cooking, adding sweetness and body to the broth.
Celery
Contributes aromatic compounds that build the soup's characteristic savoury flavour.
Catsup
Adds tomato acidity and sweetness that rounds out and deepens the broth.
Port wine
Adds sweetness, depth and aromatic richness to the finished broth.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 4 hours. A rolling boil toughens meat and clouds the broth, while a gentle simmer slowly converts collagen to gelatin so the tails become tender and the soup stays clear.

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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