Why it works: Truffle and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,900 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Ox Cheek Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Bake the ox cheek with seasoning until just done; it can stay in the oven overnight.
Line a deep dish with puff pastry.
Remove the flesh, kernels, and fat from the head, and cut into pieces.
Assemble and bake
Place the pieces in the dish and add truffles, morels, egg yolks, mushroom pickle, and force-meat balls.
Season with pepper and salt, then fill the pie with the gravy from the baked cheek.
Cover with a crust and bake in the oven.
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.
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Truffle + mushroomtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,900 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
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Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,580 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Truffle + meattop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together527 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Mushroom + meattop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,423 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Truffle + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,604 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Ox cheek
- Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and rich after long slow baking.
- Puff pastry
- Forms a crisp, flaky crust that holds the filling and browns in the oven.
- Truffles
- Adds a strong earthy aroma that flavours the filling.
- Morels
- Contribute a meaty texture and woodsy aroma to the filling.
- Hard-boiled egg yolks
- Add richness and a soft, creamy texture to the filling.
- Gravy
- Moistens the filling and carries the flavour of the baked cheek.
The step that matters
Baking the ox cheek until just done. Overcooking makes the meat dry and stringy, while underdone collagen stays tough. Stopping at just done keeps it tender, since it will cook further in the pie.
“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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