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Ox-Cheek Pie

A savory pie made with ox cheek, truffles, morels, egg yolks, mushrooms, and force-meat balls, baked in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 the filling

  1. Bake the ox cheek with seasoning in the usual way, ensuring it is not overcooked.

  2. Prepare a thick puff pastry.

  3. Line a deep dish capable of holding a lot of gravy with the pastry.

  4. Remove all flesh, kernels, and fat from the cheek. Cut the removed flesh, kernels, and fat into pieces.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the meat in the dish.

  2. Add truffles, morels, egg yolks, mushrooms, and force-meat balls to the dish.

  3. Season the pie with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  4. Fill the pie with the gravy from baking the cheek.

  5. Close the pie with the pastry crust.

  6. Bake until the top is well browned.

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. Truffle + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Truffle + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Mushroom + meattop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,423 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Truffle + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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
Slow-cooked meat that becomes tender and forms the main body of the filling.
Puff pastry
Forms a crisp, flaky crust that holds the filling and browns in the oven.
Truffles
Add a strong, earthy aroma to the filling.
Morels
Add a deep, meaty flavour and chewy texture to the filling.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a firm, crumbly texture to the filling.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savoury depth, filling the pie with rich liquid.

The step that matters

Bake the ox cheek without overcooking it. Ox cheek is a tough cut that turns tender with long, gentle cooking. Overcooking can dry out the meat and leave the gravy thin, since the collagen has already broken down and the meat can only lose moisture further.

“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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