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Bread-crusted ox-tail served on stewed cabbage or in its own gravy with tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and cabbage are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Sprinkle the ox-tail with a small quantity of coarse sea salt and cayenne pepper.

  2. Dip the ox-tail into clarified butter, then coat it thickly with fine bread crumbs.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the ox-tail on a grill and cook until evenly browned.

  2. Alternatively, place it in the oven at 400°F (200°C) or before the fire until properly colored.

  3. Serve immediately on a bed of stewed cabbage or in its own thickened gravy with tomato sauce in a tureen.

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 + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 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 + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

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

  5. Cabbage + tomatotop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together333 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ox-tail
Main meat that is cooked and browned, forming the body of the dish.
Clarified butter
Fat that helps the bread crumbs adhere and promotes browning on the surface.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a coating that crisps and browns during cooking, adding texture to the crust.

The step that matters

Coating with bread crumbs. The ox-tail must be dipped in clarified butter before the crumbs go on, because the fat is what makes the thick crumb coat stick and brown evenly rather than fall off or burn in patches.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, bread, tomato, 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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