Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓
Spiced Salt
Ingredients
Directions
Grind the spices
Pound the dried thyme, marjoram, savory, nutmeg, cloves, black pepper, and Nepaul pepper in a mortar until finely ground.
Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.
Mix and bottle
Mix 1 ounce of the ground spices with 4 ounces of coarse sea salt.
Bottle the spiced salt and cork it securely.
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.
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Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,225 recipes
Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).
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Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,686 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Marjoram + nutmegtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together687 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Marjoram + clovetop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,075 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together4,108 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Dried thyme leaves
- Adds an earthy, herbal aroma that flavours the salt.
- Dried marjoram
- Adds a sweet, floral herbal aroma to the blend.
- Dried savory
- Adds a peppery, herbal aroma that rounds out the blend.
- Nutmeg
- Adds a warm, sweet aroma to the blend.
- Cloves
- Adds a strong, warm aroma that stands out in the blend.
- Whole black pepper
- Adds a sharp, pungent bite to the blend.
The step that matters
Mix the ground spices evenly into the salt. Fine, dry spice powder only seasons consistently when it is thoroughly distributed through coarse salt. Uneven mixing leaves some pinches bland and others strongly spiced.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (thyme, marjoram, clove, pepper):
- Winter savoryfits better
- Allspicefits better
- Sagefits better
- Nutmegthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against thyme, marjoram, clove, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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.
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