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To Stew Ox Cheek

A hearty stew of ox cheek with carrots, turnips, onions, and spices, finished with port wine or ale.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

To Stew Ox Cheek

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Clean the ox cheek and parboil it.

  2. Remove the bone and stew the meat in part of the boiling liquid.

Make the stew

  1. Thicken the stew with a mixture of butter and flour.

  2. Cut carrots and turnips into dice or fancy shapes to fill a pint basin.

  3. Mince two or three onions and add them along with the vegetables.

  4. Season with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and Jamaica pepper.

  5. Cover the pan and stew for two hours.

  6. Before serving, add a glass of port wine or ale.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Flour + turniptop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox cheek
Long stewing breaks down connective tissue, giving the meat a tender, silky texture.
Butter
Combined with flour to form a roux that thickens the stew and adds richness.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, body-rich sauce when cooked with butter.
Carrots
Add sweetness and hold their shape through long stewing, adding body to the dish.
Turnips
Contribute mild sweetness and a firm texture that holds up during long cooking.
Onions
Break down during stewing, adding savory depth and sweetness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken the stew with butter and flour. Flour must be cooked into the butter and liquid so it swells and thickens evenly; added raw or in lumps, it stays grainy and pasty.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, carrot, turnip, pepper, port wine):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, carrot, turnip, pepper, port wine. 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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