Skip to main content
Main

Stewed Ox-cheek, Plain

A slow-cooked stew of ox cheek with carrots, leeks, turnips, sweet herbs, pepper, and allspice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Leek and turnip 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 ↓

Stewed Ox-cheek, Plain

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak and cleanse the ox cheek the day before cooking.

  2. Place the cheek in a pot and cover it with 3 quarts of water.

Simmer

  1. Bring to a boil, then skim the surface and reduce to a simmer.

  2. After 2 hours, add the carrots, leeks, turnips, sweet herbs, whole pepper, and allspice. Skim the surface often.

  3. When the meat is tender, remove it from the pot.

Finish

  1. Let the soup cool, then skim off the fat.

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. Leek + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Carrot + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,021 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox cheek
Collagen-rich connective tissue that breaks down during long simmering, giving tender meat and body to the broth.
Carrots
Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth as they soften.
Leeks
Contribute mild onion-like flavor that builds the base of the broth.
Turnips
Soften during simmering and add a mildly sweet, earthy flavor to the broth.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes that perfume the broth.

The step that matters

Skim the surface often. Bringing the liquid to a rolling boil emulsifies fat and impurities into the broth, making it cloudy and greasy. Keeping it at a gentle simmer and skimming regularly yields a clearer, cleaner-tasting stew.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, leek, turnip, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, leek, turnip, 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.

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesTurnip SoupTurnip Soup43 recipesLeek SoupLeek Soup31 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes