Name: Salmon Sandwiches
Ingredients: ½ lb cold boiled salmon; 1 tablespoon mayonnaise; ½ small cucumber; pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; brown bread

Why it works: Salmon and cucumber work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 513 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Salmon Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Remove skin and bones from the salmon and break it into small pieces.

Assemble the sandwich

Mix the salmon with mayonnaise, pepper, and coarse sea salt.
Spread the mixture on slices of brown bread.
Add a few very thin slices of cucumber on top.

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.

Salmon + cucumbertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together513 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Cucumber + peppertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,991 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cucumber + breadtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together344 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Salmon + breadtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together941 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon: Provides the main protein and flavor, and its flaked texture forms the filling.
Mayonnaise: Adds fat and moisture, binding the flaked salmon into a spreadable filling.
Cucumber: Adds cool, crisp texture and a fresh contrast to the rich salmon.
Brown bread: Serves as the base that holds the filling and gives the sandwich its structure.