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Ox-palates, Stewed

A stew of ox palates simmered with stock, herbs, and vegetables, finished with a brown roux.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Ox-palates, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the palates

  1. Soak the ox palates in salt water for several hours, pressing them to draw out mucus.

  2. Wash the palates in 2-3 changes of water.

  3. Place the palates in a stewpan covered with cold water. Heat the stewpan gradually. Drain the water before boiling.

  4. Scrape off the rough skin.

Stew

  1. Return the palates to the stewpan.

  2. Add stock, herbs, peppercorns, vegetables, and salt to the stewpan.

  3. Simmer gently for 4 hours.

  4. Press the cooked palates between two dishes until cold.

  5. Cut the palates into 2-inch squares.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a separate stewpan, fry the butter and flour until brown to make a roux.

  2. Strain the stock from the palates into the roux.

  3. Add the palate pieces to the roux. Heat through.

  4. Serve garnished with fancifully cut vegetables.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 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 palates
Main protein; long gentle simmering turns the tough tissue tender and gelatinous.
Stock
Liquid that cooks the palates and, once strained, becomes the body of the sauce.
Butter
Fat that carries flavour and, with flour, forms the roux that thickens the sauce.
Flour
Starch that, cooked with butter into a roux, thickens the stock into a sauce.
Onion
Aromatic vegetable that adds savoury sweetness to the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 4 hours. A rolling boil toughens and breaks up the meat, while gentle heat slowly converts collagen to gelatin, giving a tender, silky texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, carrot, turnip, parsley, thyme):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, carrot, turnip, parsley, thyme. 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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