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Ox-Cheek Stew

A hearty stew made from ox cheek, onions, turnips, carrots, and herbs, thickened with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ox-Cheek Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cheek

  1. Soak the ox cheek in cold water overnight.

  2. Wipe it clean and place it in a stewpan, covering it with water.

  3. Skim the surface when it begins to boil.

Stew

  1. Add onions (with cloves), turnips, carrots, bay leaves, allspice, celery, sweet herbs, salt, and pepper.

  2. Stew gently for about 3 hours until tender.

  3. Remove the cheek, cut into pieces, and strain the gravy.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Melt butter in a stewpan, mix in flour until smooth, then gradually add the gravy.

  2. Stir in vinegar or catsup, and bring to a boil.

  3. Serve in a soup or ragout dish.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  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 cheek
Long, gentle stewing breaks down its connective tissue, making the meat tender and rich.
Butter
Melted with flour to form a roux that thickens the gravy and adds richness.
Flour
Mixed with melted butter to form a roux that thickens the gravy smoothly.
Gravy
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, carrying flavour and body to the finished dish.
Basil vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity that brightens the rich, heavy flavour of the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the gravy to the roux. Adding liquid gradually while stirring keeps the flour dispersed, so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, turnip, carrot, allspice, corn, celery, 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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