Why it works: Parsley and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,483 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓
Salad Piquante
Ingredients
Directions
Make the cheese balls
In a bowl, rub the cream cheese with a little butter until smooth.
Mix in the chopped olives and pimentos.
Roll the mixture into very small balls.
Roll the balls in finely chopped parsley.
Serve
Serve 3 or 4 balls in a nest of lettuce hearts with mayonnaise.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Parsley + lettucetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,483 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Olive + lettucetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,580 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Olive + parsleytop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,649 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Cream cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,747 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Olive + cream cheesetop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,003 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cream cheese
- Provides a soft, creamy base that holds the olives and pimentos together.
- Olives
- Add salty, briny flavour and bits of texture throughout the mixture.
- Pimentos
- Add mild sweetness and colour to the mixture.
The step that matters
Rubbing the cream cheese smooth. Cream cheese softened and worked smooth with butter blends evenly with the other ingredients. If it stays lumpy, the olives and pimentos will not mix in evenly and the balls may crumble when rolled.
Swap the lettuce
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, cream cheese, butter, parsley):
- Chivefits better
- Potatofits better
- Tomatofits about as well
- Lettucethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against olive, cream cheese, butter, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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