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Salmon Pie

A baked pie with salmon, anchovies, mushrooms, herbs, and a brown gravy sauce, topped with pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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

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 the sauce

  1. Set aside the salmon slices.

  2. In a saucepan, combine anchovies, mushrooms, parsley, shallots, thyme, butter, pepper, salt, nutmeg, tarragon, lemon juice, and brown gravy.

  3. Simmer the mixture gently, stirring constantly.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a pie dish with short pastry.

  2. Layer the salmon, hard-boiled eggs, and anchovies in the dish, spreading herb sauce between each layer.

  3. Cover the dish with pastry and bake at 350°F (175°C) 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 + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  3. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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 provides its flaky, substantial filling.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and a firm, sliced texture between the fish layers.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the herb sauce, carrying flavour and smoothness.
Brown gravy
Provides moisture and savoury depth that binds the sauce and keeps the filling from drying.
Shallots
Contribute a mild, sweet onion aroma that mellows during simmering.
Anchovies
Add concentrated savoury depth that enriches the fish flavour without tasting strongly of fish.

The step that matters

Simmering the sauce gently. Simmering gently while stirring constantly prevents the butter and gravy from separating or scorching on the pan base. Overheating can break the emulsion and leave the sauce grainy or burnt, so it should stay at a low, steady heat.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, mushroom, parsley, shallot, thyme, butter, pepper. 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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