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No. 253— Salmon Pie

A savory pie with salmon, anchovies, mushrooms, and hard‑boiled eggs in a buttery gravy, topped with puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 ↓

No. 253— Salmon Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. In a clean stewpan, combine the butter, chopped shallots, mushrooms, parsley, lemon thyme, pepper, salt, nutmeg, lemon juice, and water.

  2. Add the salmon and simmer gently, avoiding the anchovies.

Prepare the eggs

  1. Boil the eggs hard, then place them in cold water and slice them.

Assemble and bake

  1. Grease a pie dish with butter and layer the salmon, anchovies, and egg slices.

  2. Pour the cooking gravy over the layers.

  3. Roll out the puff pastry and cover the pie, making it decorative.

  4. Brush the top with egg yolk and bake until golden.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  5. Thyme + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 cooks through gently in the gravy, staying moist.
Eggs
Hard-boiled and sliced, they add firmness and substance to the layers.
Butter
Enriches the gravy with fat, carrying flavour and adding richness.
Anchovies
Add a savoury, salty depth that enhances the flavour of the fish.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy flavour to the gravy.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky crust that puffs and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Simmer the salmon gently. Gentle simmering cooks the fish evenly and keeps it moist and tender. Vigorous boiling toughens the proteins and can break the slices apart.

“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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