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Ham and Swiss Salad with Red Currants

"The sweetness of the ham is a nice complement to the tartness of the currants. I couldn't find one recipe that used fresh red currants that wasn't a jam or dessert so I made this one up."

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Why it works: Swiss cheese and honey share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and 31 recipes mention both. Both carry methyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells apple, fatty. The science ↓

The recipe

6 servings
Prep30 min

Ingredients

Contains: milk (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. Rinse and pat dry the romaine, then chop it into bite-sized pieces. Wash and dry the arugula and place both greens in a large bowl.

  2. Thinly slice the shallot and halve the grape tomatoes. Add the shallot and tomatoes to the greens.

  3. Pull the red currants off their stems and rinse them gently. Add the currants, sliced mushrooms, chopped honey ham and shredded Swiss cheese to the bowl.

  4. Whisk the balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil together in a small bowl. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  5. Just before serving, pour the dressing over the salad and toss gently until everything is evenly coated. Serve right away.

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. Swiss cheese + honeytop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together31 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).

  2. Mushroom + swiss cheesetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together136 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).

  3. Grape + honeytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together694 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Mushroom + shallottop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,960 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,718 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the arugula

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, mushroom, grape, tomato, shallot, red currant, swiss cheese):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Potatobetter flavor fit
  3. Spinachbetter flavor fit
  4. Arugulathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, mushroom, grape, tomato, shallot, red currant, swiss cheese. 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).