Name: Spiced Salt, for Stuffings
Ingredients: ½ ounce powdered thyme; ½ ounce powdered cloves; ½ ounce powdered nutmeg; ½ ounce white or black pepper; ¼ ounce powdered bay leaves; ¼ ounce powdered marjoram; ¼ ounce powdered red pepper; 1½ pounds fine salt

Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Spiced Salt, for Stuffings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the spiced salt

Combine all dried herbs with the fine salt in a bowl and mix thoroughly until well combined.
Transfer the mixture into bottles.

Store

Seal the bottles tightly with corks.
Store in a cool, dry place for use in stuffing.

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.

Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,225 recipes

Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).
Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,686 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Nutmeg + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together687 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Clove + marjoramtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,075 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4,108 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Fine salt: Carries the powdered herbs and spices evenly and seasons the stuffing throughout.
Powdered cloves: Adds warm, aromatic flavour to the blend.
Powdered nutmeg: Adds warm, sweet aroma to the blend.
Powdered thyme: Adds herbal, earthy aroma to the blend.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (thyme, clove, pepper, marjoram):

Winter savoryfits better
Allspicefits better
Sagefits better
Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against thyme, clove, pepper, marjoram. 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.

Chicken Salad623 recipes

Salad Dressing491 recipes

Tomato Salad179 recipes

Cold Slaw160 recipes

Like knowing why a recipe works?

The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.

Spiced Salt, for Stuffings