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Eyeball Pasta

Get everyone in the Halloween mood with this gory but tasty pasta dish

By bbcgoodfood · From Open Recipes · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Basil and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 3,979 recipes mention both. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 4-6 children
Prep15 min
Cook10 min

Ingredients

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 →

By bbcgoodfood. 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. Basil + tomatotop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,979 recipes

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

  2. Cherry tomato + basiltop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together11 recipes

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

  3. Cherry tomato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together13 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + saucetop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together5,468 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Basil + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together701 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the cherry tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (basil, tomato, sauce):

  1. Avocadobetter flavor fit
  2. Limebetter flavor fit
  3. Lemonbetter flavor fit
  4. Cherry tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against basil, tomato, sauce. 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).