Name: Potted Salmon
Ingredients: 1 tin of salmon; 2 tablespoons butter; salt to taste; pepper to taste

Why it works: Salmon and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,481 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Potted Salmon

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

1 tin of salmon
2 tablespoons butter
salt to taste
pepper to taste

Directions

Pound the salmon very fine or process it through a machine.
Add butter, salt, and pepper to the salmon and mix well.
Transfer the mixture into a small dish.
Cover the top with additional butter.

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.

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).
Salmon + peppertop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,446 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).