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Ox Palate, a LA Menagere

A stew of ox palates simmered with carrots, onions, parsley root, and flour, served with piquante sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Ox Palate, a LA Menagere

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the ox palates in boiling water until the hard skin can be removed.

  2. Wash the palates several times in hot water, then place them in cold water.

  3. Mix flour with a little water to make a smooth paste.

Simmer

  1. In a saucepan, combine the carrots, onions, parsley root, and the flour mixture.

  2. Add the ox palates, cover with water, and let them simmer gently for six hours. Keep the palates covered with water while cooking.

Finish and serve

  1. Once they are white, remove the palates and cut them into square pieces.

  2. Serve with sauce piquante.

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

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

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Parsley + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

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

  5. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox palates
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender and gelatinous during long, gentle simmering.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, lightly bodied sauce.
Carrots
Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the cooking liquid.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and savory aroma to the broth as they cook down.

The step that matters

Simmering gently for six hours. Gentle heat, not a hard boil, lets collagen in the palates slowly break down into gelatin, making them tender without toughening or falling apart. Keeping them submerged prevents exposed parts from drying and discoloring.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, clove, parsley, flour, pepper, garlic):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, clove, parsley, flour, pepper, garlic. 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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