Name: Roasted Salmon
Ingredients: salmon; fat pork or bacon; oil; Fisa spices; fine herbs; bread; oil or butter; vinegar or lemon juice

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Roasted Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Cut the salmon into slices, either crosswise or lengthwise.
Insert fat pork or bacon into the back of the salmon.
Let the salmon marinate in oil seasoned with Fisa spices and fine herbs for 6 hours.
Skewer the salmon slices on a wooden spit, alternating with slices of bread as thick as your thumb.
Secure the wooden spit to an iron spit or arrange it for cooking.
Cook over a gentle fire, basting with oil or butter.
Serve with remoulade sauce, poivrade sauce, or simply with vinegar or lemon juice.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Pork + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,371 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,933 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,481 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Pork + vinegartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,563 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).