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Salad

Spiced Salt

A mixture of dried herbs and spices blended with coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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

Make the spice mix

  1. Dry the thyme, bay leaf, black pepper, marjoram, cayenne pepper, cloves, and nutmeg.

  2. Powder and sift the dried herbs and spices until thoroughly mixed.

Finish and store

  1. For every 4 ounces of this mixture, add 1 ounce of coarse sea salt.

  2. Store the spiced salt in an airtight container.

  3. Use 1 ounce of spiced salt for every 3 pounds of dressing.

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.

  1. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Marjoram + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Marjoram + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked 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

Thyme
Adds a savory, earthy aroma to the blend.
Bay leaf
Contributes a subtle herbal aroma that rounds out the blend.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, pungent heat and aroma.
Cayenne pepper
Adds clean, direct heat.
Cloves
Contributes a warm, intense aroma.
Nutmeg
Adds warm, sweet aromatic notes.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (thyme, pepper, marjoram, clove):

  1. Winter savoryfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against thyme, pepper, marjoram, clove. 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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