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Tomato and Bocconcini Salad

"This salad should be made with the freshest ingredients possible, and is a delight as a side to most any meal! If you can't find, or don't have bocconcini, you could use another size of fresh mozzarella instead."

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 14,164 recipes mention both. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

The recipe

6 servings
Prep15 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. Whisk the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, minced garlic, salt and black pepper together in a small bowl until the dressing is combined.

  2. Place the baby spinach and arugula in a large serving bowl and toss them lightly to mix.

  3. Add the grape tomatoes, bite-sized bocconcini pieces and minced red onion to the greens and gently toss.

  4. Pour about two-thirds of the dressing over the salad and toss gently to coat everything evenly.

  5. Let the salad stand for about 5 minutes so the flavors blend.

  6. Drizzle the remaining dressing over the salad just before serving and toss once more.

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. Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,164 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Garlic + tomatotop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together14,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Garlic + spinachtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanol (resin, flower).

  4. Olive + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together23,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Pepper + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17,913 recipes

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

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 (olive, vinegar, garlic, pepper, spinach, grape, tomato):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, vinegar, garlic, pepper, spinach, grape, tomato. 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).