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Ox Cheek Soup

A hearty soup made with ox cheek, beef, veal, ham, onions, sherry, and spices, 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: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Ox Cheek Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. In a pan, combine the beef, veal, ham, Jamaica pepper, and cloves to make a rich gravy.

  2. Strain the gravy through a sieve into a clean pan.

Simmer the soup

  1. Add the cleaned and cut ox head to the pan.

  2. Simmer the soup very slowly for at least 4 to 5 hours.

  3. To thicken, mix a bit of butter with flour and add it along with the sherry.

  4. Pass a few stewed onions through a drainer and add them to the soup.

  5. Season to taste, skim the surface, and serve hot.

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Beef + vealtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

Beef
Builds the rich, savory flavor of the gravy that forms the base of the soup.
Ox head
Slow simmering draws gelatin and body from the bones and meat into the broth.
Butter and flour
Together they form a roux that thickens the soup and gives it body.
Sherry
Adds acidity and a deeper aroma to balance the rich meat broth.

The step that matters

Simmer the soup very slowly. Long, gentle simmering lets collagen in the ox head break down into gelatin, giving body to the broth. A rapid boil makes the broth cloudy and can toughen the meat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, ham, sherry, butter, flour, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Carrotfits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, ham, sherry, butter, flour, 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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