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Salmon Pie

A savory pie made with salmon, shrimps, fish gravy, and pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Salmon and fish are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,078 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Salmon 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 the salmon

  1. Remove the skin from the salmon and separate the flesh from the bones.

  2. Cut the salmon into serving pieces and season each piece with salt, pepper, and pounded mace.

Make the shrimp butter and gravy

  1. Pound the shelled shrimps with butter and cayenne.

  2. Make fish gravy by boiling the skin and bones in water until it jellies when cold.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the salmon pieces in a dish and intersperse the pounded shrimps among them.

  2. Fill the dish with the fish gravy, cover with pastry, and bake in a well-heated oven at 400°F (200°C) for one hour.

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. Salmon + fishtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Shrimp + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,931 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  3. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Shrimp + fishtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together252 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Salmon + shrimptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together819 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, 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 body of the pie, providing the flaky, tender filling.
Shrimps
Add a soft, rich texture and savoury flavour when pounded with butter.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the pounded shrimp a smooth, spreadable texture.
Fish gravy
Adds moisture to the filling and, as it jellies, helps it set when cold.
Pastry
Encloses the filling and browns in the oven, sealing in moisture.

The step that matters

Make the fish gravy until it jellies. Gravy made from skin and bones must be boiled long enough to release natural gelatin; this is what makes it set when cold and keeps the filling moist rather than watery.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, pepper, shrimp, butter, fish):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, pepper, shrimp, butter, fish. 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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