Name: Salmon, Broiled
Ingredients: 1 inch thick slice of salmon or 2 salmon fillets; soft butter; cayenne pepper; coarse sea salt (formerly 'Searcy Salt')

Why it works: Salmon and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,481 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Salmon, Broiled

Ingredients

1 inch thick slice of salmon or 2 salmon fillets
soft butter
cayenne pepper
coarse sea salt (formerly 'Searcy Salt')

Directions

Prepare and broil

Cut a slice about an inch thick from a whole salmon or use two fillets.
Place the salmon on a wire gridiron and broil over a clear fire.
Rub the salmon with soft butter.
Sprinkle with cayenne pepper and coarse sea salt.

Serve

Serve immediately.

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 + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,481 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Salmon + peppertop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,446 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 dish, cooking to a flaky texture under direct heat.
Soft butter: Adds fat and moisture to the surface, helping the salmon stay juicy and brown lightly.
Cayenne pepper: Adds gentle heat and aroma that contrasts with the rich fish.

“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.