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A Salmon Pie

A salmon pie with lobster and butter, baked in a pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

A 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.

Prepare

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

  2. Prepare a pie crust and place the crust in a pie dish.

  3. Clean the salmon.

  4. Season the salmon with coarse sea salt, mace, and nutmeg.

  5. Place 2 tablespoons of butter at the bottom of the dish.

  6. Lay the salmon on top of the butter.

Make the lobster topping

  1. Boil the lobster.

  2. Remove the lobster flesh and chop it finely.

  3. Mix the lobster flesh with additional melted butter.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the lobster mixture over the salmon.

  2. Cover with the pie crust lid.

  3. Bake until cooked through.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Salmon + lobstertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together313 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Butter + lobstertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon
Forms the main filling and becomes flaky and tender as it cooks through.
Lobster
Adds sweet, delicate flavor and tender meat to the topping layer.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the filling stay tender and flavorful.
Pie crust
Encloses the filling and browns in the oven, giving structure and texture.

The step that matters

Bake until cooked through. Salmon and lobster can dry out or turn rubbery if overbaked, yet underbaked fish is unsafe. Check the thickest part of the salmon for opaque, flaky flesh.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, nutmeg, butter, lobster):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, nutmeg, butter, lobster. 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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