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Ox Tail a LA Tartare

A dish of boiled ox tail pieces coated in egg and cracker crumbs, fried, and served with tartare sauce and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Ox Tail a LA Tartare

Ingredients

Directions

Braise

  1. Combine ox tails, stock, bouquet of sweet herbs, salt, and pepper in a pot.

  2. Simmer for 2 hours until the ox tails are tender.

  3. Remove the ox tails, drain, and let them cool.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each piece in beaten egg, then roll in cracker crumbs.

  2. Fry in hot lard until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Pour tartare sauce in the center of a serving dish, arrange the fried ox tails on top, and garnish with parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Sauce + parsleytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,693 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Pepper + saucetop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Pepper + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Pepper and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,303 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Ox tails
Long simmering turns the connective tissue tender and gives the meat its body.
Stock
Supplies liquid during the braise and adds savory depth to the meat.
Beaten egg
Acts as the glue that helps the cracker crumbs adhere to the meat.
Fine cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, browned coating when fried.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying and encourages golden browning of the crumb coating.

The step that matters

Let the ox tails cool before coating. Cooled, drained pieces are drier, so the egg and crumbs stick evenly; wet meat makes the coating slide off and fry unevenly in hot fat.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, egg, sauce):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, egg, sauce. 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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