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Ox-Tail

A boiled ox tail, seasoned, coated in breadcrumbs, and grilled, served with gravy or cabbage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Ox-Tail

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ox-tail

  1. Simmer the ox-tail in plenty of boiling water, slightly salted, for 15 minutes.

  2. Remove the ox-tail and place it in fresh water to cool.

  3. Wipe the ox-tail and lay it in a small stewpan without dividing it.

Stew

  1. Cover the ox-tail with good beef gravy and stew gently until very tender.

  2. Drain the ox-tail slightly.

Coat and grill

  1. Sprinkle the ox-tail with salt and cayenne.

  2. Dip the ox-tail in clarified butter.

  3. Coat the ox-tail thickly with fine bread crumbs.

  4. Grill the coated ox-tail until evenly browned all over.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately, or place it on stewed cabbage or in its own thickened gravy with tomato sauce.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  5. Butter + beeftop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox-tail
Provides the meat that becomes tender through long, gentle stewing in gravy.
Beef gravy
Moistens the meat during stewing and forms the sauce that carries its flavour.
Clarified butter
Adds fat that helps the bread crumb coating brown evenly under the grill.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust on the outside of the meat when grilled.

The step that matters

Grill the coated ox-tail until evenly browned all over. The crumb coating needs enough butter and direct heat to brown without burning. Turning the piece so every side is exposed gives an even crust, while the meat inside is already tender from stewing, so the grill only needs to set and colour the outside.

“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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