Name: A Salmon Pie
Ingredients: 1 piece of salmon; Coarse sea salt; 1/4 teaspoon mace; 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg; Butter; 1 lobster

Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

A Salmon Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Make a good crust for the pie.
Clean the salmon well and season it with salt, mace, and nutmeg.

Assemble and bake

Place a piece of butter at the bottom of the dish and lay the salmon in.
Boil the lobster, pick out all the flesh, and chop it small.
Bruise the lobster body and mix it well with melted butter.
Pour the lobster mixture over the salmon, cover with the pie lid, and bake well.

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.

Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,557 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Salmon + lobstertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together313 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together24,377 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,481 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Butter + lobstertop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,609 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon: Forms the main body of the pie filling and provides the savoury base.
Lobster: Adds flesh and rich, sweet seafood flavour to the filling.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the filling.