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Stewed Ox-Cheek, Plain

A slow‑cooked stew of ox cheek with carrots, leeks, turnips, herbs, and spices, served as soup or with the meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 and cleanse the ox cheek the day before cooking.

  2. Place the cheek in a stew pot and cover with 3 quarts of water.

Stew

  1. Bring to a boil, then skim the surface and reduce to a simmer.

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

  3. Skim often; when the meat is tender, remove it from the pot.

Finish and serve

  1. Let the soup cool, then remove the fat from the surface.

  2. For a richer color, add burnt sugar or brown fried onions with flour to the soup.

  3. Serve the soup separately or with the meat.

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
Long simmering breaks down its connective tissue, making the meat tender and gelatinous.
Carrots
Release natural sweetness and body into the broth as they cook slowly.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and earthy flavor to the broth during the long simmer.
Leeks
Contribute a mild onion-like aroma and savory depth to the soup.

The step that matters

Skimming the surface while simmering. Skimming removes coagulated proteins and fat that would otherwise cloud the broth and give it a greasy, muddy taste. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil keeps the broth clear and the meat tender.

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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