Name: Broiled Salmon
Ingredients: slices of salmon; cayenne pepper; coarse sea salt; lemon juice; salad oil; butter; pork fat (for greasing); sauce suitable for fish

Why it works: Pepper and lemon 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 ↓

Broiled Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Sprinkle the salmon slices with cayenne pepper, coarse sea salt, lemon juice, and salad oil. Let sit for 30 minutes.
Grease the gridiron with a piece of pork fat.
Wrap the fish in buttered paper to prevent burning.
Broil the salmon until cooked through.
Serve with your choice of fish sauce.

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.

Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Salmon + fishtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,078 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Pork + fishtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together668 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,488 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + porktop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,933 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).