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Ox-tail, Stewed

A hearty stew of ox tail pieces simmered with onion, flour, stock, and spices, finished with lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Ox-tail, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tail

  1. Wash the ox-tail.

  2. Cut it into pieces about 1½ inches long, dividing the thick parts in half.

  3. Dry the pieces of tail thoroughly.

Brown and stew

  1. Heat the butter or fat in a stewpan.

  2. Fry the tail pieces until browned.

  3. Remove the tail pieces from the pan.

  4. Add the sliced onion and flour to the stewpan and fry until well browned.

  5. Add the stock, bouquet garni, cloves, mace, salt, and pepper.

  6. Stir until boiling.

  7. Return the pieces of tail to the stewpan.

  8. Cover closely.

  9. Simmer gently for 2½ to 3 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Arrange the tail pieces on a hot dish.

  2. Season the sauce to taste.

  3. Add the lemon juice.

  4. Strain the sauce over the tail pieces.

  5. Garnish with croutons of fried bread or fancifully cut cooked turnip and carrot.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox-tail
Slow simmering breaks down its connective tissue and gelatin, giving a tender meat and rich body.
Flour
Browned with the onion, it thickens the stock into a sauce and adds color and roasted flavor.
Butter or good fat
Carries the frying heat and browns the tail pieces, adding richness and flavor.
Sliced onion
Browns with the flour and adds sweetness and savory depth to the sauce.
Stock or water
Forms the cooking liquid that becomes the sauce as the tail simmers.

The step that matters

Browning the tail pieces and the flour. Deep browning builds the Maillard flavors that give the sauce its color and depth. Pale frying leaves the sauce tasting flat, and wet, unthorough drying of the tail stops it from browning well.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, parsley, thyme, clove, onion, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, parsley, thyme, clove, onion, lemon. 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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