Skip to main content
Main

Ox-head Soup

A hearty soup made from ox cheek, celery, carrots, turnip, onions, spices, and herbs, simmered and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Ox-head Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ox-cheek

  1. Soak the ox-cheek in cold water for 2 hours.

  2. Break any unbroken bones and wash the meat in warm water.

  3. Place the meat in a pot and cover it with cold water.

Make the broth

  1. Bring to a boil and skim off the scum.

  2. Add celery, carrots, turnip, onions, pepper, allspice, sweet herbs, and parsley.

  3. Cover and simmer gently for 3 hours.

  4. Remove the head.

  5. Strain the broth through a fine sieve and set aside in a cool place.

Finish the soup

  1. Once cooled, cut the meat into bite-sized pieces and skim off the fat from the broth.

  2. Combine 2 quarts of broth and the meat in a clean stew-pan and simmer for an additional 30 minutes.

  3. If thickening is desired, melt butter in a pan and mix in flour until dry.

  4. Add the soup and stir well, then simmer for another 30 minutes.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Marjoram + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together957 recipes

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

  3. Allspice + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox-cheek
Provides rich meat and gelatin that enrich the broth as it simmers.
Celery
Adds savoury aromatic flavour to the broth during the long simmer.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth.
Butter
Adds richness and, with flour, forms a roux that thickens the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup when cooked with butter into a roux.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum after boiling. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise when the liquid first boils. Removing it keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, carrot, turnip, pepper, allspice, marjoram, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, carrot, turnip, pepper, allspice, marjoram, lemon. 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesTurnip SoupTurnip Soup43 recipes