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Salmon Pie, to Be Eaten Cold

A cold pie made with canned salmon, fresh fish, butter, breadcrumbs, poulette sauce, eggs, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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, to Be Eaten Cold

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the forcemeat

  1. Cut the drained salmon into fillets using a dessert knife.

  2. Prepare the forcemeat by pounding the fresh fish with butter and breadcrumbs in a mortar.

  3. Pass the mixture through a wire sieve.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. Moisten the forcemeat with the poulette sauce.

  6. Bind with the raw eggs.

Assemble the pie

  1. Line a raised pie tin with pastry.

  2. Fill the bottom with a layer of forcemeat.

  3. Add a layer of salmon, about 1 inch thick.

  4. Continue layering until the pie is filled.

  5. Cover the pie with puff pastry.

  6. Brush the pastry with egg white.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake slowly at 300°F (150°C).

  2. Let the pie cool for 30 minutes.

  3. Pour fish broth through a hole in the top.

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. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  3. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,481 recipes

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

  5. Salmon + eggtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh fish
Forms the smooth forcemeat base that gives the pie its fine, firm texture.
Fresh butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, moist texture in the forcemeat.
Fine white breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and help the forcemeat hold together and bind.
Raw eggs
Bind the forcemeat and set during baking to hold the layers together.
Poulette sauce
Moistens the forcemeat and adds creamy richness to the filling.
Canned salmon
Provides the main salmon flavour and the layered body of the filling.

The step that matters

Bake slowly at a low temperature. Eggs in the forcemeat set gently at low heat. Higher heat can make them curdle, toughen, or dry out the pie.

“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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