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Soup

Ox-tail Soup

A hearty soup made from ox-tails, vegetables, butter, and seasonings, simmered for several hours and thickened with flour or corn-flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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

  1. Wash and soak the ox-tails, then cut them into pieces and dry them on a cloth.

Make the soup

  1. Fry the ox-tail pieces in butter until browned, along with the chopped vegetables.

  2. Add the water, peppercorns, cloves, salt, and ketchup to the pot.

  3. Simmer gently for about 4 hours, or until the ox-tails are tender.

  4. Carefully remove the pieces of tail and strain the soup.

Finish and serve

  1. Thicken the soup with flour or corn-flour, then return the pieces of tail to the soup.

  2. Simmer for an additional 5 minutes 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
Provide the meat and gelatin-rich body that gives the soup its savoury flavour and richness.
Butter
Carries browning in the pan, building deeper savoury flavour in the ox-tails and vegetables.
Onions
Release sugars when fried and simmered, adding sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth.
Flour or corn-flour
Starch that thickens the simmering liquid into a body-rich soup.
Ketchup
Adds tomato-based acidity and a touch of sweetness to the broth.

The step that matters

Simmering gently for about 4 hours. A gentle simmer keeps the broth clear and lets collagen in the tail break down slowly into gelatin, giving body. A hard boil emulsifies fat into the liquid, makes it cloudy, and can toughen the meat.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, carrot, turnip, onion, celery, ketchup, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, carrot, turnip, onion, celery, ketchup, 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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