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Stewed Ox Cheeks

A slow-cooked dish of ox cheeks simmered with onions, sugar, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Ox Cheeks

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Soak the ox cheeks in salt and water for half an hour.

  2. Wash the cheeks thoroughly in five or six changes of water.

Stew and finish

  1. Brown the cheeks in a pan with onions and a little sugar.

  2. Cover the cheeks with boiling water and let them simmer gently for five hours.

  3. For the last hour, cover the pan with a lid and place it in a 300°F (150°C) oven to reduce the gravy.

  4. Season with pepper and salt to taste before serving.

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

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

  2. Sugar + peppertop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,401 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Onion + sugartop 36% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,747 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 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 cheeks
Long, gentle simmering breaks down the tough connective tissue, leaving the meat tender.
Onions
Release sugars and aroma as they cook, adding sweetness and depth to the gravy.
Sugar
Caramelises during browning, helping the cheeks and onions develop a richer colour and flavour.

The step that matters

Browning the cheeks. Browning creates deep flavour through the Maillard reaction. The cheeks must be dried and cooked in a pan with enough room, otherwise they steam instead of browning and the gravy tastes flat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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