Name: Spiced Salmon
Ingredients: 1 pint vinegar; ⅓ cup coarse sea salt; 1 ounce whole black pepper; 1 ounce cinnamon; salmon fillets

Why it works: Pepper and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,890 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Spiced Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the salt and water with the vinegar, black pepper, and cinnamon.
Cut the salmon into slices.
Boil the salmon in the mixture until cooked.
Once cooled, pack the salmon tightly in a pan.
Pour the boiling liquid and spices over the salmon to cover completely.
Cover the pan tightly to exclude air.

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 + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4,890 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Vinegar + cinnamontop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,187 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).
Vinegar + salmontop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,675 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Pepper + salmontop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,446 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).