Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Baked Salmon
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Sprinkle the salmon with salt and pepper.
Place the fish on a grate in a baking pan.
Bake and serve
Baste the fish with butter and mushroom ketchup.
Bake in the oven, basting occasionally.
Once cooked, sprinkle browned cracker crumbs over the fish.
Garnish with sliced lemon before serving.
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.
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Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,525 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
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Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,580 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Mushroom + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,633 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,481 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
- Whole salmon
- Forms the main body of the dish, cooking to a flaky, tender texture.
- Butter
- Adds fat and moisture, keeping the fish from drying out as it bakes.
- Mushroom ketchup
- Adds savory, umami depth to the basting liquid.
- Browned cracker crumbs
- Add a crisp, toasted texture and browned surface on top of the fish.
The step that matters
Basting during the bake. Basting spreads melted butter and liquid over the fish's surface, adding moisture as the heat dries it out. Skipping it or letting the fish overbake can leave the flesh dry and tough.
“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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