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Pasty of Salmon

A puff pastry pie filled with forcemeat, salmon, and poulette sauce, finished with a truffle essence broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and truffle are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,209 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Pasty of Salmon

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.

Make the forcemeat

  1. Pass the breadcrumbs through a wire sieve.

  2. In a mortar, combine the breadcrumbs and butter, then pound together.

  3. Season the mixture with salt and pepper.

  4. Moisten with the poulette sauce and bind with the raw eggs.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a raised pie tin with puff pastry.

  2. Fill the bottom with a layer of forcemeat, then a layer of salmon, packing tightly.

  3. Cover with puff pastry, brush with egg white, and bake at 300°F (150°C).

Add the broths and serve

  1. Let cool for 30 minutes, then pour in the fish broth through a hole in the top.

  2. Prepare the essence of truffles by boiling truffles in chicken broth with Madeira, herbs, pepper, salt, and nutmeg for 20 minutes.

  3. Strain the essence and pour it into the pie, then let it cool completely before serving.

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. Butter + truffletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

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

  3. Fish + truffletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Fish + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together190 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Truffle + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together756 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

Breadcrumbs
Form the body of the forcemeat and absorb moisture so it holds together.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the forcemeat.
Raw eggs
Bind the forcemeat so it sets firm when baked.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, golden crust that encloses the filling.
Fish broth
Adds moisture and savoury fish flavour to the finished pie.
Essence of truffles
Adds a deep, earthy aroma to the broth poured into the pie.

The step that matters

Let the pie cool before adding the essence. Broth poured in while the pie is still hot can run out or cloud the filling. Letting it cool first lets the liquid settle into the pie, and the essence sets to a jelly-like texture as it cools completely.

“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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