Skip to main content
Main

Stewed Ox-cheek

A stew of ox cheek with onions, celery, herbs, and seasonings, thickened with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 28 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

The recipe

8 persons

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the cheek

  1. Have the cheek boned, and prepare it the day before it is to be eaten, by cleaning and putting it to soak all night in salt and water.

  2. The next day, wipe it dry and clean, and put it into a stewpan.

  3. Just cover it with water, skim well when it boils, and let it gently simmer till the meat is quite tender.

Make the gravy and stew

  1. Slice and fry 3 onions in a little butter and flour, and put them into the gravy.

  2. Add 2 whole onions, each stuck with 3 cloves, 3 turnips quartered, 2 carrots sliced, a bay-leaf, 1 head of celery, a bunch of herbs, and seasoning to taste of cayenne, black pepper, and salt.

  3. Let these stew till perfectly tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Then take out the cheek, divide into pieces fit to help at table, skim and strain the gravy, and thicken 1-1/2 pint of it with butter and flour in the above proportions.

  2. Add the vinegar, ketchup, and port wine; put in the pieces of cheek; let the whole boil up, and serve quite hot.

  3. Send it to table in a ragout-dish.

  4. If the colour of the gravy should not be very good, add a tablespoonful of the browning, No. 108.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Ox cheek
Long gentle simmering breaks down connective tissue, making the meat tender and moist.
Flour
Thickens the gravy when cooked with butter, giving it body.
Onions
Frying softens and sweetens them, adding depth of flavour to the gravy.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and rich, fruity aroma to the finished gravy.
Chili vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, savoury gravy.

The step that matters

Simmering the cheek until tender. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer, not a hard boil, lets connective tissue slowly convert to gelatin so the meat becomes tender without toughening or falling apart.

“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.

You might also like

Illustration of Tomato SoupIllustrationTomato Soup526 recipesIllustration of Carrot SoupIllustrationCarrot Soup134 recipesIllustration of Cream of Celery SoupIllustrationCream of Celery Soup113 recipesIllustration of Cream of Tomato SoupIllustrationCream of Tomato Soup107 recipes