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Salmon Pie

A savory pie with salmon, eggs, anchovies, olives, mushrooms, shallots, herbs, butter sauce, and pastry.

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the eggs until hard, then set aside.

  2. Cut the salmon into 1-inch thick slices and set aside.

  3. Fillet the anchovies and remove the stones from the olives without damaging their shape.

  4. Chop the mushrooms, shallots, parsley, thyme, basil, and tarragon.

  5. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  6. Add the chopped ingredients, nutmeg, pepper, and salt, and simmer for 5 minutes.

  7. Add the brown sauce and lemon juice, stir for another 5 minutes, then remove from heat.

Assemble and bake

  1. Roll out half of the pastry to ½ inch thick.

  2. Line a buttered pie dish with the rolled pastry.

  3. Layer the salmon, hard-boiled eggs, olives, and anchovies in the dish, adding some herbs and sauce between layers.

  4. Cover the pie with the remaining pastry.

  5. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for 1 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. 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

Eggs
Set firm when hard-boiled, adding body and richness to the filling.
Salmon
Provides the main protein, which firms and flakes as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the cooked filling.
Mushrooms
Release moisture as they cook, adding savoury depth and body to the filling.
Short pastry
Forms a crisp, rich case that holds the filling and browns in the oven.
Brown sauce
Adds moisture and savoury flavour that binds the layers together.

The step that matters

Simmering the chopped ingredients and sauce before layering. Cooking off excess moisture from the mushrooms and sauce keeps the filling from making the pastry soggy and helps the pie hold its shape when sliced.

Swap the basil

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, salmon, olive, 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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