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Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made with ox tails, beef, ham bone, root vegetables, herbs, and optional seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 soup

  1. Cut the ox-tails into joints.

  2. In a large pot, boil the ox-tails, beef, ham bone, carrots, turnips, celery, onions, bread, herbs, cloves, and peppercorns in enough water for several hours.

Simmer and strain

  1. Remove the ox-tails when tender and continue boiling the remaining ingredients for 4 more hours.

  2. Strain the broth and remove the fat as you would for clear gravy soup.

Finish and serve

  1. If not using ham bones, add ketchup or prepared sauces, wine, and cayenne to taste.

  2. Return the ox-tails to the soup and add pieces of carrot and turnip cut into fancy shapes.

  3. For a thicker soup, thicken the broth with brown roux before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 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 flavor into the broth as they simmer for hours.
Gravy beef
Adds meaty flavor and body to the broth during long simmering.
Ham bone
Contributes savory, smoky depth to the stock as it cooks.
Brown roux
Thickens the broth and adds a toasted, nutty flavor and body.

The step that matters

Removing the fat from the strained broth. Fat floats on top of a long-simmered broth and, if left in, makes the soup greasy and cloudy. Skimming and straining while the broth is hot and separated gives a clearer, cleaner result.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, ham, carrot, turnip, onion, celery, bread):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, ham, carrot, turnip, onion, celery, bread. 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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