Name: Salmon Salad
Ingredients: 1 can salmon; 2 heads lettuce; Juice of 1 lemon; Salt; Pepper

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Salmon Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Break the salmon into small pieces and mix with salt, pepper, and lemon juice. Chill in the refrigerator until cold.
Wash the lettuce and soak in ice water until cold. Drain and refrigerate until ready to serve.
Arrange the lettuce leaves in a shell shape on a flat dish.
Mix the salmon with salad dressing and pour lightly over the lettuce leaves.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,037 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Lettuce + lemontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,559 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Salmon + lemontop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,918 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Salmon + lettucetop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together487 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).