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Smoked Salmon & Chive Pâté

A fantastic dip to hand around with hunks of brown bread at your next posh party

By bbcgoodfood · From Open Recipes · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Salmon and chive work together. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 343 recipes mention both. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 8
Prep20 min

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Put the cream cheese in a bowl and beat with a spoon until smooth and soft.

  2. Stir in the horseradish cream until evenly combined.

  3. Fold in the finely chopped smoked salmon and 3 tablespoons of the chives, keeping a little chive back for garnish.

  4. Squeeze in the juice from half the lemon a little at a time, tasting as you go, and stir well.

  5. Spoon the pâté into a serving dish, smooth the top, and sprinkle with the reserved chives.

  6. Cover and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes so it firms up slightly.

  7. Serve chilled with melba toast or mini oatcake biscuits.

By bbcgoodfood. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Salmon + chivetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together343 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Horseradish + chivetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together113 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Cream cheese + salmontop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together148 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Cream cheese + biscuittop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together145 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Cream cheese + chivetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together204 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream cheese, horseradish, cream, biscuit, salmon, chive):

  1. Avocadobetter flavor fit
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Pumpkinabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Coconutabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against cream cheese, horseradish, cream, biscuit, salmon, chive. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).