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To Stew Ox-Cheek

A stew of ox cheek simmered with onions, turnips, carrots, celery, leeks, herbs, spices, and thickened with butter, flour, and port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 ↓

To Stew Ox-Cheek

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ox-cheek

  1. Clean the ox-cheek and soak it in lukewarm water for 12 hours.

  2. Remove the ox-cheek from the water, wipe it, and place it in a stewpan with enough cold water to cover it.

Make the stew

  1. Gradually heat the water until it begins to simmer, then add the salt and skim continually for 2 hours.

  2. Add the onions, turnips, carrots, celery, leeks, sweet herbs, bay leaves, peppercorns, mace, and Cayenne.

  3. Remove the scum as it rises and let the mixture simmer for 2 more hours.

Thicken and serve

  1. Take out the ox-cheek, cut off the meat, and divide it into neat squares.

  2. Strain the gravy, thicken 1 quart of it with butter and flour, and add the port wine.

  3. Serve the meat with the thickened gravy.

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. 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. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 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, leaving the meat tender and rich.
Butter
Combined with flour to form a roux that thickens the gravy and adds richness.
Flour
Forms a roux with butter that thickens the gravy to a smooth body.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavor to the finished gravy.
Turnips
Break down during simmering, adding body and sweetness to the broth.
Leeks
Soften during simmering, contributing mild onion flavor and aroma to the stock.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum during the first two hours. Scum is coagulated proteins and impurities that rise as the liquid heats. Removing them continually keeps the stock clear and clean-tasting rather than cloudy or greasy.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, onion, clove, turnip, carrot, celery, leek. 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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