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Grilled ox-tail served after boiling, stewing in beef gravy, and coating with clarified butter and breadcrumbs.

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 ↓

Modern Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the ox-tail in salted water for 15 minutes.

  2. Transfer the ox-tail to fresh water to cool.

  3. Wipe the ox-tail dry.

Stew

  1. Place the ox-tail in a small stewpan and cover it with beef gravy.

  2. Stew gently until very tender.

  3. 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 with bread crumbs.

  4. Grill the ox-tail until evenly browned and serve immediately.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Beef + breadtop 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. Beef + buttertop 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 main meat, which becomes tender through long gentle stewing.
Beef gravy
Adds moisture and savory flavour as the ox-tail stews.
Clarified butter
Carries the crumbs and promotes even browning and a rich flavour on the grill.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust on the outside of the ox-tail.

The step that matters

Stew gently until very tender. Connective tissue in ox-tail needs slow, low-heat cooking to break down into gelatin. Rapid boiling can toughen the meat and leave it stringy, so the tail must be cooked gently until fully tender before it is coated and grilled.

“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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