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Steived Ox-tails

A hearty stew of ox tails simmered with carrots, onions, parsley, mace, celery seeds, peppercorns, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Steived Ox-tails

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oxtail

  1. Wash the ox-tails and cut them into joints.

  2. Boil the joints in water for 10 minutes, then drain and trim them.

Stew

  1. In a stewpan, combine the ox-tails, carrot, onion with cloves, parsley, mace, celery seeds, peppercorns, salt, and stock or water.

  2. Bring to a boil, skim the surface, cover, and simmer for 2 hours until tender.

  3. Pour off the gravy into a basin surrounded by cold water to remove the fat.

Add vegetables and finish

  1. Prepare the carrots, turnips, and onions, then strain the stock and add the vegetables.

  2. Season with pepper and salt, and boil until the vegetables are tender.

  3. Combine the ox-tails and vegetables in a clean stewpan.

  4. Skim the sauce and thicken if necessary, then pour it over the ox-tails.

  5. Simmer for 10 minutes and serve neatly arranged in a hot dish.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Ox-tails
Long simmering breaks down connective tissue, making the meat tender and rich in body.
Stock or water
Liquid that carries flavour and, once reduced, forms the body of the gravy.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and colour to the stew and hold their shape during simmering.
Turnips
Add mild, slightly sweet flavour and a firm texture to the vegetable garnish.
Onions
Provide savoury depth and sweetness as the stock simmers.

The step that matters

Skimming the fat from the gravy. Fat that is not removed after chilling and skimming leaves the sauce greasy and heavy, because oil floats on the surface of cooled stock and is easiest to lift off when cold.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, clove, parsley, celery, turnip, 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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