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

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

Wash and dry the salmon slices.
Sprinkle cayenne pepper, coarse sea salt, lemon juice, and salad oil over the salmon 30 minutes before cooking.
Grease the grill with a piece of pork.
Broil the salmon carefully.
Serve with a suitable 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).
Pepper + porktop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,121 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Salmon + lemontop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,918 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together625 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Lemon + porktop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,786 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).