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Ox Cheek, Stewed

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Ox Cheek, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and simmer

  1. Prepare the ox cheek as in the previous recipe.

  2. Simmer for 2 hours.

  3. Remove the ox cheek, drain it, and set the liquid aside to cool.

  4. Skim off the fat from the top of the liquid.

  5. Return the skimmed fat to the pan with the ox cheek.

  6. Add the onion with cloves, mixed vegetables, thyme, bay leaves, mace, peppercorns, and more salt if needed.

  7. Simmer for another 2 hours.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Remove the meat and slice it neatly.

  2. Strain the gravy.

  3. Thicken 1½ pints of the gravy with butter rolled in flour.

  4. Serve the slices of meat with the sauce poured over them.

  5. Optionally stir in red wine.

  6. Optionally mix with beaten egg yolks.

  7. Optionally squeeze lemon juice over the meat before serving.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  4. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Turnip + carrottop 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
Long simmering breaks down its connective tissue, making the meat tender and rich.
Flour
Thickens the gravy when cooked with butter, giving the sauce body.
Butter
Combines with flour to form a roux that thickens the gravy and adds richness.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce, adding richness and smoothness.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and meat.

The step that matters

Skimming the fat after the first simmer. Fat rises to the surface as the liquid cools and would make the gravy greasy if left in. Skimming it off before returning the pan to the heat keeps the sauce clean and balanced.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, turnip, carrot, leek, celery, parsley, thyme):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, turnip, carrot, leek, celery, parsley, thyme. 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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