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Ox-head Soup

A hearty soup made from ox cheek, celery, turnip, carrots, onions, spices, and optional wine or brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,979 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Ox-head Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ox cheek

  1. Soak the ox cheek in cold water for 2 hours.

  2. Remove it, break any unbroken bones, and wash it in lukewarm water.

  3. Place it in a pot, cover with cold water, and bring to a boil.

Make the soup

  1. Skim off any scum, then add celery, turnip, carrots, onions, black pepper, allspice, parsley, marjoram, savory, and lemon thyme.

  2. Cover and simmer on low heat for 3 hours.

  3. Remove the ox cheek and strain the soup into a stoneware pan.

  4. Let both the meat and soup cool overnight.

Finish and serve

  1. Cut the meat into small pieces, skim off the fat from the soup, and place 2 quarts of the soup and all the meat into a clean saucepan.

  2. Simmer for 30 minutes, adding cayenne and white wine or brandy if desired.

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Allspice + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  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
Provides rich meat and gelatin that give the soup body and a silky mouthfeel.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth as they soften during the long simmer.
Celery
Adds a fresh, slightly bitter vegetal aroma that builds the soup's base flavour.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and body to the broth.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and earthy flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Cooling overnight and skimming the fat. Chilling lets fat solidify on the surface so it can be lifted off cleanly, leaving a lighter broth. Gelatin from the cheek also sets as it cools, which firms the soup and shows how rich it is before reheating.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, turnip, carrot, pepper, allspice, parsley, marjoram. 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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