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Stewed Ox-tails

A slow‑cooked stew of ox tails with onion, carrots, parsley, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

  1. Soak and wash the ox tails well.

  2. Cut them into lengths of two or three joints.

Make the stew

  1. Cover the ox tails with cold broth or water in a pot.

  2. Bring the liquid to a boil.

  3. Remove the scum that rises to the surface.

  4. Add salt, pepper, onion, carrots and parsley.

  5. Simmer for 2 hours and 15 minutes, checking for tenderness.

  6. If not tender, continue simmering until fully cooked.

Serve

  1. Serve with the vegetables.

  2. Strain the gravy and thicken it.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 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 tails
Collagen in the connective tissue breaks down during long simmering, giving the stew body and tenderness.
Onion
Releases sugars and aromatic compounds into the broth, adding savoury depth to the gravy.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body to the broth as they soften during simmering.

The step that matters

Removing the scum. Foam that rises as the liquid comes to a boil contains coagulated proteins and impurities. Skimming it keeps the broth clear and prevents a bitter, cloudy gravy.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, clove, carrot, parsley. 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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