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Ox Cheek Soup

A hearty soup made from ox cheek, vegetables, herbs, and vermicelli, simmered slowly for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Ox Cheek Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Separate the bones from the meat and break the bones.

  2. Cut the meat into finger-length pieces and two fingers wide.

Simmer and stew

  1. In a pot, combine the meat with 4 cups of water and ¼ teaspoon of coarse sea salt.

  2. Set the pot over gentle heat and skim off any foam during the first boiling.

  3. After two hours of gentle simmering, add the chopped carrots, turnips, onion, celery, cabbage, sweet herbs, black pepper, and vermicelli.

  4. Let it stew for an additional two and a half hours, skim again, and remove the herbs and bones.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ox cheek
Slow simmering breaks down the connective tissue, making the meat tender and enriching the broth.
Vermicelli
Adds starch that thickens the soup slightly and gives it body.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and color to the broth as they soften.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and a mild sweetness as it cooks down into the soup.

The step that matters

Skim the foam during the first boiling. Foam carries impurities and proteins that would cloud the broth and give it an unclean flavor. Skimming early keeps the soup clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, celery, cabbage, parsley, thyme, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, celery, cabbage, parsley, thyme, 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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