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Ricotta and Pea Crostini with Tarragon and Pink Peppercorns

This delicately flavored and out-of-the-ordinary appetizer is a welcome addition to a spring dinner or cocktail party. Whole-grain bread is delicious for the crostini, but a traditional French baguette works nicely as well.

By williamssonoma · From Open Recipes · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,691 recipes mention both. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

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

By williamssonoma. 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. Tarragon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,691 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,030 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Olive + peastop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-hex-3-en-1-ol (freshly cut grass green and herbaceous notes).

  5. Olive + cheesetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,530 recipes

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

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

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, garlic, peas, tarragon, ricotta cheese, cheese, pepper):

  1. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  2. Spinachbetter flavor fit
  3. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, garlic, peas, tarragon, ricotta cheese, cheese, pepper. 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).