Skip to main content
Main

Ox-cheek Soup

A hearty soup made with ox cheek, ham, vegetables, and herbs, simmered and thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Ox-cheek Soup

Why it works: Parsnip and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,097 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Ox-cheek Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the ham in the bottom of a large stewpan, then add the butter.

  2. Break the bones of the ox-cheek, wash it clean, and place it on top of the ham.

  3. Chop the vegetables and add them to the stewpan.

Make the soup

  1. Set the stewpan over a low fire for 1 hour.

  2. Add the water and simmer gently until reduced to 4 quarts.

  3. Remove the meat from the stew.

  4. Strain the soup into a clean pot.

  5. Thicken the soup with flour.

  6. Add a head of sliced celery and simmer until the celery is tender.

  7. Add browning for color if needed.

Serve

  1. Cut the meat into small pieces.

  2. Pour the soup over the meat.

  3. Serve with the crust of a French roll.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Parsnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Parsnip + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together561 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Parsnip + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together306 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox-cheek
Provides rich meat and gelatin that give the soup body and flavor as it simmers.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavor and rounds out the broth.
Ham
Contributes savory, salty depth to the broth as it cooks.
Celery
Adds aromatic flavor and a tender vegetable texture to the soup.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the soup, giving it a fuller, smoother body.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until reduced to 4 quarts. A gentle simmer extracts flavor from the meat and bones slowly while concentrating the broth. A hard boil makes the soup cloudy and can toughen the meat, so keep the liquid barely bubbling until it reaches the target volume.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, ham, parsnip, carrot, onion, celery, 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.

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCelery StewCelery Stew25 recipesCelery CroquettesCelery Croquettes16 recipes