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Ragout of Ox Tails

A stew of ox tails, bacon, carrots, onions, and herbs, served over mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and carrot 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 ↓

Ragout of Ox Tails

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub the butter over the bottom of a large stew pan.

  2. Add the pieces of ox tails and bacon, and cook over moderate heat, stirring occasionally until browned.

  3. Mix in the flour, then add the water and bring to a boil.

Simmer

  1. Once boiling and half cooked, add the parsley, bay leaves, carrots, and onions.

  2. Season with salt, sugar, and pepper, then let simmer until the tails and vegetables are tender.

Serve

  1. Remove the tails and arrange them in a pyramid on a serving of mashed potatoes.

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 + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

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

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Walnut + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together865 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox tails
Provide the main meat, whose collagen softens into a rich, tender texture during long simmering.
Butter
Fat that starts the browning of the tails and bacon and carries flavour into the pot.
Streaky bacon
Renders fat and adds smoky, savoury flavour that browns onto the pan and enriches the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a sauce as it heats with the water.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body to the ragout as they soften while simmering.
Button onions
Contribute sweetness and soft texture, mellowing as they simmer in the sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the tails and bacon. Cooking over moderate heat until well browned triggers the Maillard reaction, building the deep savoury flavour the sauce depends on. Pale meat yields a flatter, less complex ragout.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, walnut, flour, parsley, carrot, sugar, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, walnut, flour, parsley, carrot, sugar, 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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