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Ox-tails and Palates

A stew of ox tails and palates simmered with butter, flour, onion, mustard, ketchup, and walnut pickle, served with toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Ox-tails and Palates

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the tails

  1. Fry the divided ox tails until they are a fine pale brown, or brown them in the stew pan before adding any liquid.

  2. Add enough broth or water to cover the tails and stew gently until the palates are tender and can be easily peeled.

  3. Remove the palates and let the gravy cool to remove the fat.

Make the stew

  1. In the stew pan, melt the butter and add enough browned flour to thicken, along with the chopped onion or shallots.

  2. Cook this mixture for a few minutes, then add the seasoned meat and gravy.

  3. Simmer until well blended, then stir in the mustard and ketchup or walnut pickle just before serving.

Serve

  1. Serve with toasted bread and garnish with pickles.

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 + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Provide the meat and collagen that give the stew its body and rich flavour as they simmer.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour through the gravy.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy as it cooks with the fat and liquid.
Onion or shallots
Add savoury sweetness and aroma as they soften in the butter.
Prepared mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that cuts through the richness of the gravy.
Ketchup or walnut pickle
Adds tangy acidity and sweetness that balances the savoury, fatty gravy.

The step that matters

Cooling the gravy to remove the fat. Fat from the tails rises and sets on cooling, so it can be lifted off easily. Skipping this leaves a greasy stew once the gravy is reheated and thickened.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, pepper, mustard, ketchup, bread):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper, mustard, ketchup, bread. 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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