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Watercress Salad with Strawberries and Toasted Hazelnuts

Peppery watercress pairs beautifully with the sweetness of strawberries and earthy flavor of toasted hazelnuts. Served with a red wine vinaigrette.

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Why it works: Hazelnut and watercress share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 16 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 4
Prep10 min

Ingredients

Contains: tree nuts (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. Toast the hazelnuts on a baking sheet at 350°F (175°C) for 8 to 10 minutes, shaking once, until fragrant. Let them cool, then roughly chop them.

  2. Whisk the olive oil, red wine vinegar, honey, salt and black pepper together in a small bowl to make the dressing.

  3. Put the red onion slices in a small bowl of cold water for 5 minutes to mellow their sharpness, then drain and pat dry.

  4. Place the washed watercress in a large salad bowl, removing any thick stems.

  5. Add the drained red onion and the sliced strawberries to the watercress.

  6. Drizzle the dressing over the salad, toss gently to coat, then scatter the toasted hazelnuts over the top and serve right away.

By tastykitchen. 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. Hazelnut + watercresstop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together16 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Red wine + vinegartop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together569 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Vinegar + honeytop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,583 recipes

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

  4. Olive + vinegartop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together10,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  5. Olive + red winetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,239 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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 (hazelnut, olive, red wine, vinegar, honey, pepper, watercress):

  1. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  2. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  3. Mustardbetter flavor fit
  4. Arugulathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against hazelnut, olive, red wine, vinegar, honey, pepper, watercress. 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).