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Arugula, Blood Orange & Honey Goat Cheese Salad

So, are you in the mood for a salad? I am going back for seconds.

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Why it works: Honey and goat cheese share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 98 recipes mention both. Both carry methyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells apple, fatty. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 4
Prep10 min

Ingredients

Contains: milk, tree nuts (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. Peel the blood oranges, then chop them into rounds and set aside.

  2. In a bowl, whisk the pomegranate juice, lemon juice, Dijon mustard, honey and olive oil until smooth and well combined.

  3. Spread the washed arugula over four serving plates.

  4. Arrange the orange rounds over the arugula.

  5. Scatter the crumbled honey goat cheese, toasted chopped walnuts and pomegranate arils over the salad.

  6. Drizzle the dressing over the salad just before serving.

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. Honey + goat cheesetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together98 recipes

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

  2. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10,632 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Walnut + pomegranatetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together71 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Orange + pomegranatetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together116 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Pomegranate + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together225 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (arugula, orange, honey, goat cheese, walnut, pomegranate, lemon):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  3. Lettucebetter flavor fit
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against arugula, orange, honey, goat cheese, walnut, pomegranate, 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).