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Hot Fish Pie

A savory pie filled with salmon scallops, butter, herbs, mushrooms, truffles, and assorted seafood, baked in a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. 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. Cut the salmon into scallops to fill the pie.

  2. In a small saucepan, warm the butter and add parsley, mushrooms, truffles, and chopped shallot.

  3. Season the mixture with nutmeg and coarse sea salt.

  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 seasoning over the scallops and add laurel leaves.

  3. Cover the pie with slices of larding bacon.

  4. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) 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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

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

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

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, providing the flaky body of the pie.
Butter
Carries the seasonings and adds richness and moisture to the salmon.
Mushrooms
Add earthy, savoury flavour to the seasoned butter.
Truffles
Contribute a strong, aromatic flavour to the seasoned butter and garnish.

The step that matters

Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Salmon cooks quickly and can dry out or overcook under long heat, while the pastry and filling need enough time to set and brown. Watching for doneness keeps the fish moist.

Swap the clove

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

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

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