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Haricot of Ox-tail

A hearty stew of ox tails, beef, carrots, onions, and port wine, thickened with cornflour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Haricot of Ox-tail

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the beef and ox tails in a stew pot with 2 pints of water.

  2. Boil slowly for 2 hours.

  3. Add the carrots and onions, which have been fried until nicely browned.

  4. Simmer for another hour.

  5. Remove all the fat from the pot.

  6. Stir in 1/3 cup of port wine and a little cornflour.

  7. Season to taste with salt, cayenne, and black pepper.

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 + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 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 tails
Long simmering breaks down connective tissue, giving the stew body and richness.
Beef
Slow cooking tenderises the meat, while its juices add savoury depth to the broth.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body to the stew as they soften during cooking.
Onions
Frying until browned builds sweet, savoury flavour that deepens the stew.
Cornflour
Starch thickens the liquid into a smoother, glossier sauce when stirred in.
Port wine
Adds sweetness, depth and aroma to the sauce.

The step that matters

Removing the fat before thickening. Fat rises and pools on the surface of a long-simmered stew, and leaving it in makes the sauce greasy. Skimming it off first lets the cornflour thicken a clean, well-flavoured liquid.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, port wine, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Turnipfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, port wine, pepper. 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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