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Hot Salmon-pie

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and truffle are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,900 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Hot Salmon-pie

Ingredients

Directions

  1. On a clean surface, form a circle with the flour and place the butter, egg yolk, salt, and water in the center.

  2. Gradually mix the flour into the butter to form a firm dough. Knead it three times with your palms, then let it rest for 30 minutes.

  3. Butter a round pie mold and place it on a baking sheet lined with paper.

  4. Prepare a quenelle force-meat with the pike fillet.

  5. Remove the skin and bones from the salmon and cut the flesh into squares.

  6. In a pan, fry the chopped onion in oil or butter, then add the mushrooms and cook until their moisture is reduced.

  7. Add the chopped truffles and salmon squares to the pan, frying for a few minutes. Season with salt and spices, then moisten with Madeira and cover to simmer for a few minutes.

  8. Take two-thirds of the dough, roll it out into a thin round, and press it into the mold, covering the bottom and sides.

  9. Trim the dough above the rim of the mold, layer with force-meat, then add half of the salmon slices and some fine herbs.

  10. Cover with more force-meat and add the remaining salmon slices.

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. Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, egg, salmon, mushroom, truffle, madeira wine):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, egg, salmon, mushroom, truffle, madeira wine. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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