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Ox Cheek Stew

A stew of ox cheek simmered until tender, thickened with rice flour, ketchup, and curry or ginger and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,196 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Ox Cheek Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ox cheek

  1. Soak the ox cheek in water for 4 to 5 hours and wash it thoroughly.

  2. Place the soaked ox cheek in a pot and cover with water.

  3. Cook for 2 to 3 hours until tender.

Make the gravy

  1. Strain the gravy and remove any fat.

  2. Return the gravy to a clean saucepan.

  3. Mix in the rice flour, ketchup, and curry powder (or ginger and cayenne).

  4. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes to thicken.

Serve

  1. Serve the ox cheek with the sauce poured over it.

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. Rice + gingertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,196 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + gingertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Rice + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Rice + ketchuptop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together146 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox cheek
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and rich during long, slow cooking.
Rice flour
Thickens the gravy as it heats, giving it body.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity to the sauce, rounding out its flavour.
Curry powder
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the gravy.

The step that matters

Simmering the gravy after adding the rice flour. Starch from rice flour only thickens fully once it reaches a boil and simmers. Stopping early leaves the sauce thin and floury-tasting, while over-stirring can make it gluey.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, flour, ketchup):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, flour, ketchup. 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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