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Stewed Ox-cheek, Plain

A slow‑cooked ox cheek stew with carrots, leeks, turnips, herbs, pepper, and allspice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Leek and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Stewed Ox-cheek, Plain

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the ox cheek.

  2. Cleanse the ox cheek.

  3. Place the cheek in a stew pot.

  4. Cover with 3 quarts of water.

  5. Bring the pot to a boil.

  6. Skim off any foam.

  7. Reduce to a simmer.

Simmer

  1. After 2 hours, add the carrots, leeks, turnips, sweet herbs, whole pepper, and allspice.

  2. Skim the surface often until the meat is tender.

  3. Remove the meat.

Finish

  1. Let the soup cool to remove the fat.

  2. Serve the soup separately or with the meat.

  3. Use burnt sugar for a fine brown color.

  4. Fry onions with flour and simmer them in the soup.

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. Leek + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Leek + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  5. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox cheek
Dense connective tissue that breaks down into tender meat and rich body during long simmering.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth.
Leeks
Contribute mild onion-like aroma and savoury sweetness to the broth.
Turnips
Add earthy flavour and some sweetness as they soften in the broth.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes to the broth.
Onions
Frying them browns their sugars for deeper flavour; flour helps thicken the soup.

The step that matters

Skim the surface often until the meat is tender. Foam and fat rising to the surface cloud the broth and can taste greasy. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer, not a boil, lets the meat turn tender without breaking apart.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, leek, turnip, pepper, allspice, sugar, flour):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, leek, turnip, pepper, allspice, sugar, flour. 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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