Name: Salmon Vol-au-Vents, with Lobster Cream
Ingredients: cooked salmon; lobster cream; puff pastry; thick hot cream or good white sauce; lobster coral; chervil or parsley (optional)

Why it works: Lobster and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,050 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Salmon Vol-au-Vents, with Lobster Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Flake the cooked salmon and heat it in enough lobster cream to cover, creating a soft mixture.
Fill small puff pastry cases with the salmon mixture.
Top with thick hot cream or a good white sauce.
Dust with lobster coral and optionally garnish with chopped chervil or parsley.
Place a small ring or leaf of pastry in the center of each vol-au-vent.

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.

Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,050 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Lobster + cherviltop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together52 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Salmon + creamtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,401 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Salmon + lobstertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together313 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together288 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).