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Ox-Cheek, Anglaise
Steep an ox-cheek in cold water one hour, wash well, then place in a soup pot with a pound shin of veal, one beef marrowbone and two ounces raw ham. Season with two teaspoons salt, pour in five quarts water, then let slowly come to a boil. Skim scum from surface, add one carrot, cut in quarters, one white turnip, cut same way, one stalk celery, one white onion with two cloves stuck in, six peppercorns, a small branch parsley, a sprig thyme, a bay leaf, one sprig sage, a blade marjoram, a blade mace and teaspoon allspice. Cover pan and let slowly boil one hour. Take up the cheek, place between two boards with a six-pound weight on top. Add a gill white wine to the broth and slowly boil two hours longer. Cut one medium carrot, one white turnip and one stalk celery in small square pieces, place in a saucepan with an ounce butter and brown on fire fifteen minutes, stirring frequently. Strain the broth through a cheesecloth into the vegetables, add two tablespoons tomato catsup, a tablespoon Worcestershire sauce and a quarter gill sherry. Cut cheek in half-inch-square pieces, add to soup, then boil fifteen minutes, skim fat from surface, pour into a soup tureen and serve.
A long-simmered beef-cheek soup in the Victorian English manner, thickened by nothing but gelatin and browned root vegetables. Most of it translates directly; two or three details do not.
- The hinge: the cheek needs far longer than an hourOx cheek is a heavily worked muscle, rich in collagen and connective tissue, and one hour of simmering leaves it rubbery. Give it three to four hours at a bare simmer until a fork slides in with no resistance, then press and dice it. If you follow the timeline as written, lift the cheek only when it is genuinely tender and let the broth finish on its own.
- GillA gill is 4 fl oz, half a cup. The quarter gill of sherry at the end is 2 tablespoons.
- "Slowly boil"Throughout, read this as a bare simmer with the surface barely trembling. A true rolling boil emulsifies the marrow fat and turns the broth cloudy, which defeats the straining through cheesecloth.
- A blade of mace, a blade of marjoramA blade of mace is one piece of the lacy aril around a nutmeg, roughly a quarter teaspoon ground. "A blade of marjoram" appears to be loose usage here for a single small sprig.
- Sourcing the cheekBeef cheek is a butcher's order rather than a supermarket item, sold trimmed of the tough outer membrane and usually 1 to 1.5 lb apiece. Ask for it untrimmed of fat if you want the richer broth the recipe assumes.
- The pressingWeighting the cooked cheek between boards compacts the gelatinous meat so it can be cut into clean half-inch dice instead of shredding. Two plates and a few tins work; chill it under the weight if you want sharper cubes.
- Tomato catsupIn this period catsup was thinner, sharper and much less sweet than modern ketchup. Use a restrained hand, or substitute a tablespoon of tomato paste plus a splash of vinegar if you do not want the sugar.
- SkimmingSkim twice: once as it first comes to the boil, and again after straining, when the marrowbone fat will have risen. Chilling the strained broth and lifting the set fat is easier than skimming hot.
- YieldFive quarts of water reduces to roughly three and a half to four quarts of finished soup, enough for twelve as a first course or eight as a meal.
Ox cheek was a cheap cut in nineteenth-century Britain, sold off the head along with tongue and palate, and it turns up constantly in English cookery books as the basis of a rich, dark soup. Its virtue is collagen: long simmering gives a broth with real body and a lip-sticking texture that no amount of flour can imitate, which is why the recipe uses no thickener at all. The "Anglaise" label and the finishing trio of tomato catsup, Worcestershire sauce and sherry mark it as English rather than French to the book's cosmopolitan eye. The cut fell out of favour in the twentieth century along with most offal and head meat, and has come back only recently through braising-focused restaurant cooking.