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Stewed Ox Tail

A slow‑cooked stew of ox tail with carrot, onion, garlic, bay leaves, and a gravy made from dripping and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Stewed Ox Tail

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the tail into pieces at the joints.

  2. Wash and scrape the carrot, then slice it.

  3. Peel and slice the onion.

  4. Tie the cloves and bay leaves in a piece of muslin.

Make the gravy

  1. Heat the dripping in a saucepan until hot.

  2. Fry the vegetables until browned in the dripping.

  3. Sprinkle in the flour and gradually stir in the water.

  4. Bring to a boil, season the gravy to taste, and add the tail, cloves, and bay leaves.

Cook and serve

  1. Cover and cook very slowly for 2 to 3 hours, stirring occasionally.

  2. Remove the muslin and serve the meat and vegetables on a hot dish with gravy.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

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

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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 tail
Provides the meat that becomes tender during long, slow simmering in the gravy.
Dripping
Carries the heat for frying the vegetables and adds rich flavour to the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy as it is stirred in and heated.
Onion
Browns in the fat to add sweetness and depth to the gravy.
Carrot
Browns with the onion and adds sweetness to the gravy.

The step that matters

Cook very slowly. Long, gentle simmering breaks down the tough connective tissue in ox tail, making the meat tender. A fast boil can toughen the meat and leave the gravy unevenly cooked.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, clove, 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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