Why it works: Salmon and oyster work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 672 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓
Oyster Salmon
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the salmon until cooked through.
In a separate pot, cook the oysters in a small amount of water.
In a saucepan, melt butter and whisk in flour, pepper, and coarse sea salt to create a gravy.
Stir the cooked oysters into the gravy.
Serve the boiled salmon topped with the oyster gravy.
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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Salmon + oystertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together672 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,184 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,481 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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