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Ox-Cheek Pie

A pie filled with ox cheek, truffles, morels, egg yolks, mushrooms, force‑meat balls, and gravy, topped with puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the cheek

  1. Bake the ox cheek with seasoning in a 300°F (150°C) oven until not overcooked.

  2. Let it stand overnight in the oven.

  3. Remove all flesh, kernels, and fat from the cheek.

  4. Cut the cheek into pieces.

Assemble the pie

  1. Place the meat in a deep dish and add truffles, morels, egg yolks, mushrooms, and force-meat balls.

  2. Season the filling with pepper and salt.

  3. Fill the pie with the gravy from the baking.

  4. Cover with a thick puff pastry crust.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the top is well baked.

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. Pepper + mushroomtop 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 baking turns its tough collagen into gelatin, giving tender, moist meat.
Truffles
Adds a strong, earthy aroma that defines the filling's flavour.
Morels
Contribute a deep, earthy flavour and a meaty texture to the filling.
Egg yolks
Add richness and a smooth, creamy body to the filling.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy savoury flavour to the filling.
Puff pastry
Its laminated layers puff with steam into a light, flaky crust.

The step that matters

Baking the ox cheek until not overcooked. Long, gentle heat slowly converts tough collagen into gelatin, which makes the meat tender and juicy. Overcooking squeezes out moisture and leaves the meat dry and stringy.

“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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