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Hot Fish Pie

A savory pie of salmon scallops baked in butter with herbs, mushrooms, truffles, and garnished with seafood.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Hot Fish Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a small saucepan, melt the butter until lukewarm.

  3. Add parsley, mushrooms, truffles, shallot, nutmeg, and salt to the butter, mixing well.

  4. Prepare your pie crust as usual.

Assemble and bake

  1. Dip the salmon scallops in the seasoned butter and arrange them in the pie in a crown shape.

  2. Pour the remaining seasoned butter over the scallops and add the laurel leaves.

  3. Cover the pie with slices of larding bacon.

  4. Bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Once done, remove excess fat and garnish with soft roes, lobster tails, oysters, mushrooms, artichoke bottoms, and truffles.

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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

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

  4. Clove + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon
Forms the main filling, cooked gently in the pie to stay moist and tender.
Butter
Carries the seasonings and adds richness, moisture and flavour to the salmon.
Truffles
Add a strong, earthy aroma to the seasoned butter that flavours the filling.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and savoury body to the seasoned butter.
Larding bacon
Covers the pie, adding fat that bastes the filling and browns the top.

The step that matters

Bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Baking at a steady 400°F sets the fish and cooks the crust through. Too long can dry the salmon, while too short leaves the fish underdone, so check that it is opaque and flakes easily.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, scallop, butter, parsley, mushroom, truffle, shallot):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, scallop, butter, parsley, mushroom, truffle, shallot. 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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