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Ox-tail, Stewed

A stew of ox tail pieces simmered with onion, stock, herbs, and spices, finished with lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Ox-tail, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tail

  1. Wash the ox-tail.

  2. Cut the ox-tail into pieces about 1½ inches long.

  3. Divide the thick parts in half.

  4. Dry the pieces of tail thoroughly.

Brown and build the sauce

  1. Heat the butter in a stewpan.

  2. Fry the pieces until browned.

  3. Remove the tail pieces from the pan.

  4. Add the sliced onion and flour to the pan and fry until well browned.

  5. Add the stock.

  6. Add the bouquet garni, cloves, mace, salt and pepper.

  7. Stir until boiling.

Simmer and serve

  1. Return the pieces of tail to the pan.

  2. Cover the pan.

  3. Simmer gently for 2½ to 3 hours.

  4. Arrange the tail pieces on a hot dish.

  5. Season the sauce to taste.

  6. Add the lemon juice.

  7. Strain the sauce over the tail pieces.

  8. Garnish with croutons of fried bread or cooked turnip and carrot cut into dice or julienne strips.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 and gelatinous body that becomes tender during long gentle simmering.
Butter
Fat that browns the tail pieces and carries flavour into the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce when cooked with the fat and onion.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it browns with the flour and fat.
Stock or water
Liquid that cooks the tail gently and forms the body of the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, heavy sauce just before serving.

The step that matters

Simmer gently with the lid on. A gentle simmer lets the tough connective tissue in the tail slowly break down into gelatin, making the meat tender. A hard boil toughens the meat and clouds the sauce.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, parsley, thyme, clove, onion, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, parsley, thyme, clove, onion, lemon. 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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