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Salmon Pie

A savory pie with salmon, anchovies, mushrooms, herbs, and a butter‑gravy sauce, topped with short pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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

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.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine butter, anchovies, mushrooms, parsley, shallots, thyme, pepper, salt, nutmeg, tarragon, lemon juice, and brown gravy.

  2. Simmer the mixture gently, stirring continuously.

Assemble and bake

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a pie dish, layer salmon slices, hard-boiled egg slices, and anchovy fillets, spreading the herb sauce between layers.

  3. Cover the dish with short pastry and bake until golden brown.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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 and sets into flakes when baked.
Eggs
Hard-boiled slices add firmness and richness to the layers.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the herb sauce, carrying its flavour.
Brown gravy
Adds moisture and savoury depth to the sauce that surrounds the fish.
Anchovies
Adds a salty, savoury depth that rounds out the fish and sauce.
Mushrooms
Adds moisture and earthy savour to the sauce as they cook down.

The step that matters

Simmering the herb sauce. Gentle simmering with constant stirring keeps the butter and gravy from scorching or separating, so the sauce stays smooth and evenly seasoned before it goes between the layers.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, mushroom, parsley, shallot, thyme, butter, pepper. 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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