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Ox Cheek Soup

A hearty soup made from ox cheek, onions, carrot, turnip, herbs, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Ox Cheek Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Wash the ox cheek in two waters.

  2. Place the ox cheek in a pot with cold water.

  3. Simmer for 30 minutes without boiling.

  4. Remove the meat.

Make the soup

  1. Return the bones to the pot with the chopped vegetables.

  2. Stew for 2 hours.

  3. Strain the soup.

  4. Reserve the bones and vegetables for another use.

  5. Brown the soup with burnt sugar.

  6. Mix the flour with some cool soup.

  7. Add the flour mixture, pepper, salt, and herbs to the pot.

  8. Boil for 10 minutes, stirring often.

  9. Remove the herbs (tie them with string for easy removal).

Serve

  1. Serve.

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. Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox cheek
Provides rich meat flavour and gelatine-rich body to the broth as it stews.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth as they soften and release their flavour into the soup.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and body to the soup as it cooks down.
Turnip
Contributes mild sweetness and earthy flavour to the broth.
Flour
Thickens the soup, giving it a smoother, more body-filled texture.

The step that matters

Mix the flour with some cool soup. Flour clumps when added directly to hot liquid. Blending it first with cool soup lets the starch disperse evenly, so the soup thickens smoothly without lumps.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, parsley, marjoram, thyme, flour, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, parsley, marjoram, thyme, flour, 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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