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Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made with ox tail, lean beef, carrots, onions, thyme, and browned flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,563 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Ox-tail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the ox-tail into several pieces.

  2. Fry the pieces until browned in butter.

  3. Slice the onions and carrots.

  4. Brown them in the same pan after removing the ox-tail.

  5. Tie the browned onions and carrots with the thyme in a bag.

  6. Place the bag in a soup pot.

  7. Add the pieces of ox-tail and the sliced beef to the pot.

  8. Grate the two whole carrots.

  9. Add them to the pot along with 4 quarts of cold water, salt, and pepper.

Simmer and finish

  1. Boil for 4 to 6 hours, depending on the size of the tail.

  2. Strain the soup 15 minutes before serving.

  3. Thicken with 2 tablespoons of browned flour.

  4. Boil for an additional 10 minutes.

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 + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 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
Releases collagen and rich flavour into the broth during long simmering.
Lean beef
Adds meaty flavour and body to the broth.
Carrots
Contribute sweetness and aromatic flavour to the broth.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and depth when browned.
Browned flour
Thickens the broth and adds a toasted, nutty flavour.

The step that matters

Boil for 4 to 6 hours. A long, gentle simmer is needed to break down the tough connective tissue in the ox-tail into gelatin, which gives the broth body. Too short a time leaves the broth thin and the meat tough.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, thyme, flour, pepper, butter):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, thyme, flour, pepper, butter. 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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