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Salmon-pie, a LA Russe

A baked salmon pie with anchovies, olives, hard‑boiled eggs, mushrooms, herbs, and brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Salmon-pie, a LA Russe

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Roll out 2 pounds of short paste and keep it cool until needed.

  2. In a stewpan, combine mushrooms, shallots, parsley, thyme, basil, and tarragon with butter, nutmeg, pepper, and salt. Simmer the mixture for 5 minutes.

  3. Add brown sauce and lemon juice to the mixture, stir, and simmer for another 5 minutes.

Assemble the pie

  1. Roll out two-thirds of the paste to ⅙ inch thick.

  2. Butter an oblong mold and line it with the paste.

  3. Layer the salmon, hard-boiled eggs, olives, and anchovies in the mold, spreading some herb sauce between layers.

  4. Cover with the remaining paste, seal the edges, and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 1.5 hours.

Serve

  1. Once done, serve on a napkin.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  4. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Parsley + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Short paste
Forms the enclosing crust that holds the filling together and bakes crisp.
Fresh salmon
Provides the main filling, cooking through in the oven to a flaky texture.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add firm, rich body to the layered filling.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and savory earthiness to the herb sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce and helps the crust brown.
Brown sauce
Adds body and savory depth to the herb sauce that binds the layers.

The step that matters

Sealing the crust. The top and edges must be sealed well so steam and juices stay inside while the pie bakes. A poor seal lets liquid escape, leaving the filling dry or the crust soggy.

Swap the basil

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, olive, egg, mushroom, shallot, parsley, thyme):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Basilthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, olive, egg, mushroom, shallot, parsley, thyme. 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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