Name: Broiled Salmon Steak with New Potatoes
Ingredients: Salmon steak; Pepper; Coarse sea salt; Olive oil or clear melted butter

Why it works: Pepper and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,263 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Broiled Salmon Steak with New Potatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Salmon steak
Pepper
Coarse sea salt
Olive oil or clear melted butter

Directions

Slice the salmon steak with a sharp knife and sever the bone in the center using a hammer.
Place the steaks in a bright tin pan or dish.
Dredge the steaks with pepper and coarse sea salt.
Brush the steaks with olive oil or clear melted butter.

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 + olivetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,263 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Salmon + olivetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,942 recipes

Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Salmon + peppertop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,446 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).