Name: Salmon a LA Maitre d’Hotel
Ingredients: Salmon slices; Lemon juice; Chopped fennel; Chopped parsley; Fish broth; Flour

Why it works: Salmon and fish are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,058 recipes mention both. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

The recipe

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Contains: wheat, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Squeeze lemon juice over the salmon slices and let them sit for a short time.
Cover each slice with chopped fennel and parsley.
Place the fish in a saucepan and cover it with fish broth thickened with flour.
Cook until the salmon is done, then serve hot.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Salmon + fishtop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together1,058 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together14,036 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Lemon + fenneltop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together723 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Fennel + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together625 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Lemon + fishtop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together1,855 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, lemon, fennel, fish, flour):

Dillbetter flavor fit
Tarragonabout as good a flavor fit
Parsleythe original
Thymeabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, lemon, fennel, fish, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).