Why it works: Fig and blue cheese share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 15 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓
The recipe
Serves 4Ingredients
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 →
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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Fig + blue cheesetop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together15 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
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Prosciutto + arugulatop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together40 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
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Olive + blue cheesetop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together314 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).
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Olive + figtop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together190 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
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Fig + prosciuttotop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together46 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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, fig, blue cheese, prosciutto, pepper):
- Tomatobetter flavor fit
- Capsicumbetter flavor fit
- Potatoabout as good a flavor fit
- Arugulathe original
Fit is the average pairing score against olive, fig, blue cheese, prosciutto, 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).
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