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Cold Sesame Soba Noodle Salad with Cabbage Slaw

Cold Sesame Soba Noodle Salad with Cabbage Slaw.

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Why it works: Sesame and sriracha work together. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 111 recipes mention both. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 4
Prep10 min
Cook5 min

Ingredients

Contains: wheat, soy, sesame (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. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the soba noodles and cook about 5 minutes, until tender. Drain, rinse under cold running water until cool, and drain well.

  2. In a small bowl, whisk the tamari or soy sauce, half of the rice vinegar, the toasted sesame oil, minced garlic, raw honey and sriracha to make the dressing.

  3. In a large bowl, toss the shredded napa cabbage with the remaining rice vinegar and let it sit for 5 minutes to soften slightly.

  4. Add the thinly sliced red bell pepper and scallions to the cabbage and toss to combine.

  5. Add the cooled noodles to the dressing and toss until evenly coated.

  6. Add the dressed noodles to the cabbage mixture and toss gently. Chill for 15 minutes if you have time, then serve cold.

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. Sesame + srirachatop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together111 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Rice + sesametop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  3. Sesame + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,999 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

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

  5. Garlic + srirachatop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together270 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the sriracha

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, rice, vinegar, sesame, garlic, honey, cabbage):

  1. Gingerbetter flavor fit
  2. Corianderbetter flavor fit
  3. Pepperbetter flavor fit
  4. Srirachathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, rice, vinegar, sesame, garlic, honey, cabbage. 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).