Name: Salmon Loaf
Ingredients: 1 pound canned salmon; 2 eggs; 1 cup stale bread crumbs; 1 tablespoon lemon juice; 1 sprig parsley, finely chopped; salt; pepper; butter for greasing

Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Salmon Loaf

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Remove all bones and skin from the canned salmon.
Beat the eggs lightly and add them to the salmon.
Mix in the bread crumbs, lemon juice, parsley, salt, and pepper.

Steam and serve

Pack the mixture into a well-buttered mold.
Steam for 2 hours.
Serve hot or cold.

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.

Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Bind the salmon mixture so it holds its shape when sliced.
Stale bread crumbs: Absorb moisture and add body, giving the loaf a softer texture.
Canned salmon: Provides the main protein and flavor of the loaf.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the fish.

“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.