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Braized Ox-cheek, with Puree of Green-peas

A braised ox cheek cooked slowly with vegetables and spices, served with a brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Braized Ox-cheek, with Puree of Green-peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the ox cheek in cold water for 2 hours.

  2. Parboil the ox cheek in water for 5 minutes, then immerse in cold water, drain, and trim.

Braise

  1. Break up the bones and place them in the bottom of a large stewpan.

  2. Place the ox cheek on top of the bones and garnish with chopped carrots, onion, celery, parsley, cloves, mace, and peppercorns.

  3. Moisten with 4 quarts of broth or water (add salt if using water).

  4. Braise gently by the side of a stove for about 2 hours.

  5. Once done, carefully remove the ox cheek and press it between two dishes.

Sauce and serve

  1. Use half the broth to prepare a brown sauce and reduce the remainder to a half glaze.

  2. Cut the ox cheek into 12 equal pieces, shape them, and trim neatly.

  3. Place the pieces in a sauté pan with the half-glaze and cover until ready to serve.

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

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

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ox cheek
Dense collagen-rich meat that becomes tender and silky during long, gentle braising.
Bones (in the method)
Release gelatin and body into the broth, enriching the sauce and glaze.
Carrots
Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the braising liquid and resulting sauce.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma as it softens and flavors the braising liquid.
Celery
Contributes aromatic background flavor to the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Braise gently by the side of a stove. Low, gentle heat keeps the liquid just below a simmer, so collagen slowly converts to gelatin without the meat toughening or drying out from vigorous boiling.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, onion, celery, parsley, clove):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, celery, parsley, clove. 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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