Name: Salmon Pie
Ingredients: salmon; butter; cayenne pepper; black pepper; coarse sea salt; bruised shrimps or lobster; water; salmon bones; salmon head

Why it works: Butter and shrimp are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,931 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Salmon Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Scale the salmon and cut it into cutlets.
Rub a pie dish with butter.
Layer the salmon pieces in the dish.
Season with cayenne pepper, black pepper, and coarse sea salt.
Add bruised shrimps or pieces of lobster.
Fill the pie dish halfway with water.
Use the salmon bones and head to make a fish gravy.
Once the pie is baked, open the lid and pour the gravy into the pie.

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.

Butter + shrimptop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,931 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Salmon + shrimptop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together819 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,481 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Pepper + shrimptop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,692 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylethanol (rose, floral).