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To Fricando Ox Palates

A stew of ox palates braised in a sauce of beef gravy, wine, and aromatics, served with stewed spinach.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,019 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

To Fricando Ox Palates

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the palates

  1. Boil the ox palates until very tender.

  2. Cut the boiled palates into square pieces.

  3. Lard the pieces with bacon.

  4. Rub the larded pieces with the egg yolk.

  5. Season the pieces with white pepper, nutmeg, and coarse sea salt.

  6. Fry the seasoned pieces until browned.

Make the sauce and stew

  1. Combine the beef gravy, white wine, lemon pickle, anchovy, shallot, and horseradish in a pot.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil and strain the gravy.

  3. Add the palates to the strained gravy.

  4. Stir the mixture and stew for 30 minutes, allowing the sauce to thicken.

Serve

  1. Press and cut the stewed spinach into pieces.

  2. Serve the palates with the spinach.

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. Nutmeg + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. White wine + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together881 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox palates
Provide the main body, becoming very tender after boiling and stewing.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor that moistens the lean palate meat during cooking.
Egg yolk
Helps the seasoning and coating adhere to the palate pieces before frying.
Beef gravy
Forms the savory sauce base that the palates are stewed in.
White wine
Adds acidity and depth to the gravy as it reduces.
Anchovy
Contributes deep savory flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stew until the sauce thickens. Stewing gently lets collagen in the palates break down into gelatin, which thickens the sauce and makes the meat tender. Boiling hard can toughen the meat and leave the sauce thin.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, nutmeg, beef, white wine, lemon, anchovy, shallot):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, nutmeg, beef, white wine, lemon, anchovy, shallot. 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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