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Ox-palates, Stewed

A rolled ox cheek stuffed with forcemeat, coated in egg and breadcrumbs, baked and served with a brown roux sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Ox-palates, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the cheek

  1. Remove the ox cheek from the boiling pot and take out the bones.

  2. Flatten the cheek on a table and season it well with salt and pepper.

  3. Spread the forcemeat on the cheek, roll it up tightly, and bind securely with string.

  4. Coat the rolled cheek thickly with egg and browned breadcrumbs.

Bake and make the sauce

  1. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for 1.5 hours, basting frequently with hot fat.

  2. In a pan, fry the butter and flour together until a brown roux forms.

  3. Strain 1 pint of liquid from the boiling pot into the roux, stir until boiling, and simmer for about 1 hour.

  4. Season to taste and strain into a sauceboat before serving.

Serve

  1. Garnish with small rolls of fried bacon and slices of lemon 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Ox cheek
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, slow cooking.
Forcemeat
Adds a seasoned stuffing that flavours and moistens the rolled meat.
Egg
Acts as a binder so the breadcrumb coating sticks to the rolled cheek.
Browned breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust during baking.
Butter
Provides fat for the roux, adding richness and a nutty flavour to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with butter to form a roux.

The step that matters

Frying the butter and flour to a brown roux. Cooking the roux until brown develops a nutty, toasted flavour and colour, but it can scorch quickly over heat. Stirring constantly and watching closely keeps it from turning bitter before the liquid is added to thicken the sauce.

“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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