Why it works: Onion and biscuit work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 428 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Baked Salmon
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Layer and bake
In a dish, layer the salmon, sliced onions, rolled soda biscuits, and butter alternately until all ingredients are used.
Season the layers with pepper and coarse sea salt.
Bake in the preheated oven until heated through.
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.
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Onion + biscuittop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together428 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together68,474 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
-
Biscuit + peppertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together841 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
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Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together42,912 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,481 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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 and supplies its protein and flavor.
- Soda biscuits
- Crumbled and layered to soak up juices and add body to the dish.
- Butter
- Adds richness and moisture as it melts through the layers.
- Onions
- Add sweetness and aroma as they soften during baking.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, biscuit, butter, pepper):
- Chivefits better
- Asparagusfits about as well
- Spinachfits about as well
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, biscuit, butter, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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.
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