Name: Salmon Jelly
Ingredients: lemon jelly; coarse sea salt; white pepper; pieces of salmon; slices of lemon; tiny lettuce leaves; mayonnaise

Why it works: Lemon and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,559 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Salmon Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare clear lemon jelly according to your favorite recipe, omitting sugar.
Add coarse sea salt and a pinch of white pepper if desired.
Pour the jelly into a mold and drop in pieces of salmon.
For a decorative touch, use small molds and place a slice of lemon at the bottom of each.
Garnish with tiny lettuce leaves and serve with a spoonful of mayonnaise on each dish.

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.

Lemon + lettucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,559 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Lemon + white peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,658 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Lemon + salmontop 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).
White pepper + lettucetop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together208 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).