Why it works: Kale and garlic work together. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 490 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
The recipe
Serves 4Ingredients
Contains: wheat, tree nuts, soy (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Also mentioned in the method: bread
Directions
Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.
Strip any remaining tough stems from the kale, then chop the leaves coarsely.
Trim the green onions and chop them, using both the white and green parts.
Put the kale, garlic, green onions and toasted soy nuts in a food processor. Add a splash of water and pulse until finely chopped and well combined.
Add the salt, then pulse again and taste, adding more salt if needed.
Toast slices of bread until golden. Spread the kale pesto over the warm toast and serve right away.
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.
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Kale + garlictop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together490 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together29,030 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Kale + oniontop 8% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together526 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Onion + nutstop 14% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together114 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Garlic + nutstop 19% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together19 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Flavor stand-ins for the nuts
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (kale, garlic, onion):
- Lentilsbetter flavor fit
- Cashew nutbetter flavor fit
- Chickpeabetter flavor fit
- Nutsthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against kale, garlic, onion. 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).
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