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Stewed Ox-cheek

A slow‑cooked stew of ox cheek with onions, turnips, carrots, celery, herbs, and a savory gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Stewed Ox-cheek

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cheek

  1. Clean the ox cheek.

  2. Soak the cheek in salt and water overnight.

  3. Dry the cheek.

  4. Place the cheek in a stew pan and cover with water.

  5. Bring the water to a boil.

  6. Skim off any foam.

  7. Let the stew simmer until the meat is tender.

Make the gravy

  1. Slice 3 onions.

  2. Fry the sliced onions in butter and flour.

  3. Add the fried onions to the gravy.

  4. Add 2 whole onions, each with 3 cloves, to the gravy.

  5. Add quartered turnips to the gravy.

  6. Add sliced carrots to the gravy.

  7. Add a bay leaf to the gravy.

  8. Add celery to the gravy.

  9. Add savory herbs to the gravy.

  10. Season the gravy with cayenne pepper, black pepper, and salt.

  11. Simmer until all vegetables are tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the cheek from the stew.

  2. Cut the cheek into serving pieces.

  3. Strain the gravy.

  4. Thicken 1 pint of the gravy with butter and flour.

  5. Stir in the vinegar, ketchup, and port wine.

  6. Return the cheek pieces to the gravy.

  7. Bring the gravy to a boil.

  8. Serve hot in a ragout 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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 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 cheek
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and rich through long simmering.
Onions
Fried in butter and flour, they add sweetness and body to the gravy.
Butter and flour
Together they form a roux that thickens the gravy and adds richness.
Turnips
Soften during simmering, adding mild sweetness and body to the gravy.
Carrots
Soften during simmering, adding sweetness and body to the gravy.
Port wine
Adds depth, sweetness and aroma to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Thicken the gravy with butter and flour. Flour must be cooked into the butter and whisked into hot liquid, or it forms lumps and leaves a raw starchy taste. Stirring in the vinegar and wine after thickening keeps the gravy from thinning or curdling.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, clove, turnip, carrot, celery, 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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