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Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made by simmering ox tails in water with salt, onion, carrot, optional vegetables, and summer savory.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and carrot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,601 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Ox-tail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Wash the ox tails clean and place them in a kettle with nearly 1 gallon of cold water.

  2. Cook the meat until well done.

  3. Add a small handful of coarse sea salt.

  4. Remove the bones and let the soup stand covered until the next day.

Finish the soup

  1. About 2 hours before dinner, skim off the fat.

  2. Finely chop the onion, grated carrot, and any additional vegetables.

  3. Add the chopped vegetables and a little summer savory to the soup.

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. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + summer savorytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together68 recipes

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

  3. Onion + summer savorytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together299 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 collagen and flavor into the water, giving the broth body and a meaty taste.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma as it softens in the broth.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and color to the soup.

Swap the summer savory

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, carrot):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Summer savorythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, carrot. 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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