Name: Salmon Sandwiches
Ingredients: 1 can of salmon; 6 hard-boiled eggs; salad dressing; thin slices of brown bread

Why it works: Egg and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Salmon Sandwiches

Ingredients

1 can of salmon
6 hard-boiled eggs
salad dressing
thin slices of brown bread

Directions

Remove the skin and bones from the can of salmon.
Shred the salmon with a fork and mix in the crumbled yolks of the hard-boiled eggs.
Season to taste and add salad dressing.
Spread the mixture on thin slices of brown bread.

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.

Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Salmon + eggtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,485 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Salmon + breadtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together941 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 filling and provides its savory flavor.
Hard-boiled eggs: Crumbled yolks add richness and a creamy, soft texture to the filling.
Salad dressing: Adds moisture and fat that bind the salmon and eggs into a spreadable mixture.
Brown bread: Provides the structure that holds the filling and adds a mildly nutty flavor.

“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.