Name: Boiled Salmon
Ingredients: Salmon; Coarse sea salt; Fennel (for garnish); Cucumber (for garnish)

Why it works: Fennel and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 126 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Boiled Salmon

Ingredients

Salmon
Coarse sea salt
Fennel (for garnish)
Cucumber (for garnish)

Directions

Place the salmon in tepid water.
Bring the water to a boil quickly and skim off any foam.
Reduce heat and let the salmon simmer until cooked.
Cook for 8-10 minutes per pound for thick salmon, or 6 minutes for thin salmon.
Serve on a hot napkin and garnish with fennel and cucumber.

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.

Fennel + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together126 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Salmon + cucumbertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together513 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Salmon + fenneltop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together253 recipes

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