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Ox-cheek Stewed

A slow‑cooked stew of ox cheek with onions, turnips, carrots, herbs, and a butter‑flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ox-cheek Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cheek

  1. Prepare the ox cheek the day before: clean it and soak it in warm water for 3–4 hours, then in cold water overnight.

  2. The next day, wipe the cheek clean and place it in a stew pan. Cover with water and skim the surface while boiling.

Make the stew

  1. Add onions (with cloves), turnips, carrots, bay leaves, allspice, celery, sweet herbs, pepper, and salt. Optionally add cayenne pepper and garlic to taste.

  2. Let the stew simmer gently for about 3 hours until the cheek is tender. Remove the cheek and cut it into pieces.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Skim and strain the gravy. In a separate pan, melt butter and whisk in flour until combined.

  2. Gradually add the strained gravy to the pan and bring to a boil. Stir in vinegar or ketchup.

  3. Serve the stew in a soup or ragout dish, or use it to make barley broth.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox cheek
Dense connective tissue that becomes tender and gelatinous after long, gentle simmering.
Butter
Fat that carries flavour and, with flour, forms the base for thickening the gravy.
Flour
Starch that thickens the strained gravy into a smooth, coating sauce when cooked with butter.
Turnips
Root vegetables that add body and mild sweetness to the simmering broth.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the finished gravy and balances the rich meat.

The step that matters

Skimming while the water comes to a boil. Removing foam and impurities as the liquid heats keeps the gravy clean and clear. Gentle simmering, not a hard boil, keeps the meat tender rather than tough and stringy.

Swap the garlic

The recipe marks garlic as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, clove, turnip, carrot, allspice, celery, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, clove, turnip, carrot, allspice, celery, pepper. 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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