Name: Marinated Salmon Roes
Ingredients: salmon roes; coarse sea salt; sweet lard; mace, finely powdered; nutmeg, finely powdered; bay leaf, finely powdered; table salt, finely powdered; cayenne pepper, finely powdered; olive oil

Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Marinated Salmon Roes

Ingredients

Directions

Wash the salmon roes in salt and water for 1 minute, then dry them well with cloths.
Smear the inside of an earthenware jar with sweet lard and place the roes inside.
Cover the jar with leather and subject it to a water bath for 3 hours.
Let the roes cool, then pick out all films and specks.
Mix in mace, nutmeg, bay leaf, table salt, and cayenne pepper to taste.
Fill dry small white jars with the mixture, pressing it down closely.
Set the jars near the door of an oven for 20 minutes.
When cool, fill the jars with olive oil, replenishing the oil the next day.
Tie a bladder closely over the jars and keep in a cool, dry room.

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.

Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,557 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Salmon + roetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together176 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,263 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Nutmeg + olivetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,864 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, roe, nutmeg, pepper, olive):

Parsleyfits better
Thymefits better
Capersfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, roe, nutmeg, pepper, olive. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.