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Ox-tails

A stew of oxtail pieces with onions, carrots, turnips, and a thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 145 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Ox-tails

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the oxtails

  1. Brown the oxtail pieces with butter and a large onion in a stewpan over medium heat.

  2. Peel the button onions.

  3. Boil the button onions in 3 pints of water for 15-20 minutes.

  4. Set the boiled button onions aside.

  5. Pour the boiling water from the button onions over the oxtails, adding enough boiling water to cover them.

  6. Add the carrots and cook for 20 minutes.

  7. Add the turnips and continue cooking until the stew is tender.

  8. Pass the gravy through a sieve, skim off the fat, and keep the meat and vegetables warm.

Make the gravy

  1. In a separate pan, melt 1 ounce of butter.

  2. Stir in enough flour to thicken.

  3. Gradually add the gravy to the butter mixture, stirring until it boils.

  4. Strain the gravy into a stewpan and let it simmer gently.

Serve

  1. Arrange the oxtails around a serving dish.

  2. Place the vegetables in the center.

  3. Pour the gravy over the oxtails and vegetables.

  4. Warm the button onions in boiling water.

  5. Place the warmed button onions around the dish just 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. Turnip + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together145 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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

Oxtails
Slow cooking in liquid breaks down connective tissue, making the meat tender and rich.
Flour
Starch thickens the gravy as it heats, giving it body.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor when browning the meat and thickening the gravy.
Carrots
Contribute sweetness and color to the stew.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and a soft texture after long cooking.

The step that matters

Simmer the gravy gently after thickening. Once flour is stirred into butter and liquid is added, boiling too hard or too long can break the sauce and leave a floury or uneven texture. Gentle simmering lets the starch swell smoothly and the gravy thicken evenly.

Swap the capers

The recipe marks capers as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, carrot, turnip, flour, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Capersthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, carrot, turnip, 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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