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Stewed Ox-tails

A hearty stew of ox tails simmered with carrots, onions, parsley, mace, celery seeds, peppercorns, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Stewed Ox-tails

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ox-tails

  1. Wash the ox-tails and cut them into joints.

  2. Boil the joints in water for 10 minutes.

  3. Drain and trim the joints.

Make the stock

  1. In a stewpan, combine the ox-tails, carrot, onion with cloves, parsley, mace, celery seeds, peppercorns, salt, and stock or water.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Skim the surface.

  4. Cover the stewpan.

  5. Simmer for 2 hours until tender.

  6. Pour off the gravy into a basin in cold water to remove the fat.

Finish the stew

  1. Prepare the carrots, turnips, and onions.

  2. Strain the stock.

  3. Add the vegetables to the stock.

  4. Season with pepper and salt.

  5. Boil until the vegetables are tender.

  6. Return the ox-tails to a clean stewpan with the vegetables.

  7. Simmer the sauce, thickening if necessary.

  8. Pour the sauce over the ox-tails.

  9. Simmer for 10 minutes before serving.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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, making the meat tender and the gravy rich.
Stock or water
Forms the liquid base that cooks the meat and becomes the sauce.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the stew as they soften in the sauce.
Turnips
Contribute a mild sweetness and firm texture to the vegetables.
Onions
Build savoury depth and flavour in the stock and sauce.

The step that matters

Skim the surface. Skimming removes foam and impurities that rise as the stock first heats, keeping the gravy clear and clean-tasting. Removing fat after chilling further lightens the sauce.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, onion, clove, parsley, celery, turnip, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, clove, parsley, celery, turnip, 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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