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Fall-toush Salad

This probably makes no sense. The classic Levantine that I’ve mercilessly punned upon is the epitome of summer: tomatoes, cucumbers, scallions, mint, parsley, garlic and lemon with pita chips that both do and do not soak up the dressing, in the best of ways. It’s bright, crunchy and the absolutely ideal thing to eat on a hot day. But at least on this coast, we’re done with beach days for a while. We’re done (or were supposed to be before today’s confusion) with open-toed shoes, permanently open windows, and going out without a jacket and not regretting it. The tomatoes are waning, the heavy orange vegetables and dark leafy greens are creeping in.

By smittenkitchen · From Open Recipes · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 14,036 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: wheat (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 smittenkitchen. 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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,036 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,118 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Mint + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,998 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Pepper + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Mint + sumactop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together39 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the brussels sprouts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, pepper, pita bread, mint, parsley, sumac, lemon):

  1. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  2. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  3. Cucumberbetter flavor fit
  4. Brussels sproutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, pepper, pita bread, mint, parsley, sumac, lemon. 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).