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Stewed Ox-tails

Stewed ox-tails simmered with onion, spices, herbs, and thickened with butter and flour, served with lemon juice and mushroom ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove 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 ↓

Stewed Ox-tails

8 persons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and simmer

  1. Divide the tails at the joints, wash them, and put them into a stewpan with enough water to cover them.

  2. Set the stewpan on the fire; when the water boils, remove the scum.

  3. Add the onion cut into rings, the spices, seasoning, and herbs.

  4. Cover the stewpan tightly and let the tails simmer gently until tender, about 2½ hours.

Make the gravy

  1. Remove the tails and make a thickening of butter and flour.

  2. Add the thickening to the gravy and let it boil for ¼ hour.

  3. Strain the gravy through a sieve into a saucepan.

Finish and serve

  1. Put the tails back into the saucepan, add the lemon juice and mushroom ketchup, and let the mixture just boil.

  2. Serve the stew, garnishing with croutons or slices of toasted bread.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

99Calories
5 gProtein
1 gFat
21 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 9 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Tomato1 medium (123g)22
Mushroom1/2 cup sliced (35g)15
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Allspice1 tsp ground (1.9g)5
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ox-tails
Collagen in the tails slowly turns to gelatin, giving the gravy body and the meat its tenderness.
Flour (in the method)
Its starch swells when heated with liquid, thickening the gravy.
Butter (in the method)
Melted into the flour, it adds richness and carries flavour into the gravy.
Onion
Simmered slowly, it adds a mellow, savoury sweetness and aroma to the broth.
Mushroom ketchup
Contributes concentrated savoury depth to the finished gravy.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens and balances the rich, fatty gravy.

The step that matters

Simmer gently, not at a hard boil. A rolling boil toughens the meat and breaks the tails apart. Collagen turns to gelatin only under long, gentle heat, so slow simmering gives tender meat and a silky gravy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, allspice, lemon, mushroom, ketchup, onion, clove):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, allspice, lemon, mushroom, ketchup, onion, clove. 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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