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Salad

Spiced Salt

A blend of dried herbs and spices mixed with salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Spiced Salt

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dry the thyme, marjoram, bay leaf, cayenne pepper, black pepper, cloves, and nutmeg.

  2. Powder and sift the dried herbs thoroughly.

  3. Mix the powdered herbs together.

Finish and store

  1. For every 4 ounces of this mixture, add 1 ounce of salt.

  2. Store in an air-tight box or can.

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.

  1. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Marjoram + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Marjoram + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Thyme
Provides the main herbal aroma and bulk of the blend.
Marjoram
Adds a sweet, floral herbal aroma to the blend.
Bay leaf
Contributes a subtle, resinous aroma to the blend.
Cayenne pepper
Adds heat and a sharp, pungent flavour.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, pungent heat and aroma.
Cloves
Adds a warm, strong aromatic spice note.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (thyme, marjoram, pepper, clove):

  1. Winter savoryfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against thyme, marjoram, pepper, clove. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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