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Ox Cheek Soup

A hearty soup made with ox cheek, vegetables, herbs, and optional additions like diced ham, mushrooms, tomatoes, onions, rice, or fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50,459 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Ox Cheek Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cheek

  1. Wash the ox cheek in salt water.

  2. Soak the ox cheek for several hours.

  3. Wipe the ox cheek dry.

Make the soup

  1. Fry the vegetables in a little hot fat.

  2. Add the ox cheek and cold water or stock.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Skim the surface.

  5. Cook gently for 4 to 5 hours.

  6. Strain the soup.

  7. Thicken with brown flour or roux.

  8. Season to taste.

  9. Optional: add diced ox cheek, rice, or fried bread 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. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + hamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,058 recipes

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

  3. Flour + hamtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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 give the soup body and a silky mouthfeel after long cooking.
Brown flour or roux
Thickens the liquid by starch gelatinization, giving the soup a fuller, smoother body.
Vegetables
Fried first in fat to build caramelized, savoury flavour that seasons the broth.

The step that matters

Skim the surface after boiling. Bringing the liquid to a boil releases coagulated proteins and fat foam to the surface. Removing them keeps the broth clear and free of greasy, bitter notes during the long gentle simmer.

“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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