Skip to main content
Main

Stewed Oxtail

A slow‑cooked stew of oxtail with vegetables, herbs, and a butter‑flour thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Oxtail

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oxtail

  1. Divide the oxtail at the joints and trim away excess fat.

  2. Place the pieces in a stewpan and cover with cold water.

  3. Bring to a boil, then remove any scum that forms.

Simmer

  1. Add the chopped vegetables, spices, and herbs to the pan.

  2. Cover the pan tightly and bring to a boil again.

  3. Simmer gently for about 3 hours until tender.

  4. Remove the oxtail pieces and set aside.

Thicken and serve

  1. In a separate bowl, make a thickening by mixing the butter and flour.

  2. Add the thickening to the cooking liquid and simmer for 15 minutes.

  3. Pick out the oxtail pieces and the best vegetables, and place them on a hot dish.

  4. Strain the gravy and pour it over the oxtail and vegetables.

  5. Garnish with toast snippets and serve.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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

Oxtail
Provides the main meat and, through its collagen, body and richness to the stew as it simmers.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth gravy when cooked with butter.
Butter
Combines with the flour into a roux that helps thicken the gravy and adds richness.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aromatic depth to the cooking liquid as it softens.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and body to the stew as it cooks down.

The step that matters

Removing the scum after the first boil. Skimming the foam that rises during the first boil keeps the broth clear and prevents impurities from clouding the gravy and tainting its flavor.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, carrot, turnip, onion, clove):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, carrot, turnip, 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.

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesTurnip SoupTurnip Soup43 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes