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Ox-tails

A stew of oxtail pieces with onions, carrots, turnips, and a thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 145 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Ox-tails

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the oxtail

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter and brown the oxtail pieces with the chopped onion over medium heat.

  2. Peel and boil the button onions in 3 pints of water for 15–20 minutes, then set aside.

  3. Pour the boiling water from the button onions over the oxtails, adding enough boiling water to cover them.

Simmer

  1. Add the sliced carrots and simmer for 20 minutes before adding the turnips.

  2. Ensure the oxtails and vegetables do not stew too quickly or too long.

  3. Once tender, strain the gravy through a sieve and skim off the fat.

Thicken and serve

  1. In a separate pan, melt 1 ounce of butter and stir in enough flour to thicken the gravy.

  2. Gradually add the strained gravy, stirring until it boils, then let it simmer gently.

  3. Arrange the oxtails around a serving dish, place the vegetables in the center, and pour the gravy over.

  4. Warm the button onions in boiling water and place them around the dish just before serving.

  5. Optionally, add minced gherkins or capers to the dish.

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. Turnip + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together145 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Onion + carrottop 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

Oxtails
Long simmering breaks down connective tissue, making the meat tender and gelatinous in the gravy.
Butter
Browning the oxtail and onion adds savoury flavour, and butter with flour forms the thickening roux.
Flour
Combined with melted butter, it forms a roux that thickens the strained gravy.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the stew as they soften during simmering.
Turnips
Add a mild, slightly peppery flavour and soft texture to the stew.

The step that matters

Keep the simmer gentle. Boiling or stewing too hard toughens the meat's proteins and breaks up the vegetables, so the oxtail should cook slowly until tender and the vegetables are added at the right time.

Swap the capers

The recipe marks capers as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, carrot, turnip, flour, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Capersthe original

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