Name: Salmon Patties
Ingredients: 2 cups cold, cooked salmon, diced; 1 cup cream; cayenne pepper, to taste; coarse sea salt, to taste

Why it works: Salmon and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,401 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Salmon Patties

Ingredients

2 cups cold, cooked salmon, diced
1 cup cream
cayenne pepper, to taste
coarse sea salt, to taste

Directions

Make the filling

Heat the diced salmon in the cream over medium heat.
Season with cayenne pepper and coarse sea salt.

Serve

Fill the shells with the mixture and serve.

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.

Salmon + creamtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,401 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together21,449 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Salmon + peppertop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,446 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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

What each ingredient does

Salmon: Provides the main protein and flavor of the filling.
Cream: Adds moisture and richness, keeping the filling soft and creamy when heated.

“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.