Name: Stewed Ox-tail
Ingredients: 1 ox tail; Vegetables (carrots, turnips, etc.); Flour; Dripping (or cooking fat)

Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Stewed Ox-tail

Ingredients

1 ox tail
Vegetables (carrots, turnips, etc.)
Flour
Dripping (or cooking fat)

Directions

Wash the ox tail in cold water and dry it with a cloth.
Prepare the vegetables by slicing them; split large carrots and turnips down the center before slicing.
Dredge the pieces of tail with flour.
Melt the dripping in a stewpan and fry the tail until golden brown.
Remove the tail, dredge the vegetables with flour, and add them to the pan.
Fry the vegetables, adding more dripping if necessary.

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.

Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,002 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Turnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,874 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Carrot + flourtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,029 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).