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Ox-tail Soup for Twelve Persons

A hearty soup made with oxtails, veal, ham, onions, spices, wine, and hard-boiled eggs, simmered for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ox-tail Soup for Twelve Persons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Joint the oxtails and finely chop the veal, ham, and onions.

  2. Heat plenty of dripping in a large frying pan and add the chopped ingredients.

  3. Fry until brown, stirring continually to prevent burning. Remove and drain.

Make the soup

  1. Place the mixture in a porcelain-lined or French pot with a close cover.

  2. Add 3 quarts of cold water and the skinned, chopped garlic.

  3. Simmer for 1 hour, then skim off the grease.

  4. Add cloves, cayenne, white pepper, and 2 tablespoons of salt.

  5. Simmer gently for 4 hours.

  6. Add the 2 quarts of bouillon and simmer for another 30 minutes.

  7. Mix in the browned flour, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, tomato ketchup, and wine.

Finish and serve

  1. Slice in the hard-boiled eggs and the peel of 2 lemons.

  2. Simmer for another 30 minutes and serve very hot.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Allspice + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Garlic + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,893 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Garlic + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Oxtails
Release gelatin and rich meaty flavor as they simmer slowly for hours.
Browned flour
Thickens the soup and adds a toasted, deeper flavor.
Claret
Adds acidity and wine flavor that balances the richness of the broth.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add body and mild richness as a garnish-like addition to the soup.
Strong beef bouillon
Provides concentrated beef flavor that deepens the soup's savoriness.

The step that matters

Browning the veal, ham, and onions. Frying until deeply brown builds the Maillard flavors that give the soup its roasted, savory depth. Stirring prevents scorching, which would make the broth bitter.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, onion, garlic, clove, allspice, flour):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Avocadofits about as well
  4. Figfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, onion, garlic, clove, allspice, flour. 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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