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Festive Olive Cheese Ball

"This is a cheese ball that has olives, butter and garlic in it, and it is rolled in walnuts - we enjoyed it every year at Christmas as children."

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 5 ingredients
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Festive Olive Cheese Ball

Why it works: Olive and garlic are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 25,665 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

Festive Olive Cheese Ball

16 servings
Prep10 min

Ingredients

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

235Calories
3 gProtein
24 gFat
3 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Cream Cheese1 oz (28g)99
Walnut1 walnut half (4g)26
Olive1 large (4g)4
Garlic1 clove (3g)4

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  2. Olive + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,087 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Cream cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,747 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Cream cheese + walnuttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together439 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Garlic + walnuttop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,009 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

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

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream cheese, butter, olive, walnut):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream cheese, butter, olive, walnut. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.