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Chef John's Baked Lemon Pepper Salmon

Make this healthy dish with your favorite wild salmon.

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 27,039 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

The recipe

2 fillets
Prep10 min
Cook15 min

Ingredients

Contains: egg, soy, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (204°C) and line a baking sheet with foil.

  2. In a small bowl, whisk the lemon juice, mayonnaise, yellow miso paste, Dijon mustard and cayenne pepper until smooth.

  3. Stir the ground black pepper into the sauce.

  4. Pat the salmon fillets dry and place them skin side down on the prepared baking sheet. Season the flesh lightly with sea salt.

  5. Spread the sauce evenly over the flesh of each fillet.

  6. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes until the thickest part of the salmon reaches 145°F (63°C) and flakes easily with a fork.

  7. Let the salmon rest for 3 minutes before serving.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Lemon + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together15,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Miso + salmontop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together42 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Miso + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together19 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Lemon + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together3,815 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, pepper, miso, salmon):

  1. Asparagusbetter flavor fit
  2. Spinachbetter flavor fit
  3. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, pepper, miso, salmon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).