Name: Sausages & Green Lentils with Tomato Salsa
Yield: 4
Ingredients: 8 medium-sized quality Italian sausages, or good fat Cumberlands; olive oil; 500 g purple-sprouting broccoli or cima di rapa; juice of ½ lemon; extra virgin olive oil; sea salt; freshly ground black pepper; olive oil; 1 small red onion, peeled and finely chopped; 3 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped; 1 small cinnamon stalk; 1-2 small dried red chillies, crumbled; 2-3 tablespoons red wine vinegar, plus extra for dressing; 2 x 400 g good-quality tinned plum tomatoes; 400 g lenticchie di Castelluccio or Puy lentils; 2 cloves garlic, peeled; 1 bay leaf; 1 handful fresh flat-leaf parsley, leaves chopped, stalks reserved; red wine vinegar or sherry vinegar; 1 small handful fresh thyme tips

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

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.

Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Broccoli + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,072 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,665 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, broccoli, lemon, pepper, clove, garlic, cinnamon):

Kalefits better
Spinachfits better
Eggplantfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, broccoli, lemon, pepper, clove, garlic, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Sausage	100g cooked	301
Olive Oil	1 tbsp (14g)	119
Lentil	1/2 cup cooked (99g)	115
Broccoli	1 cup chopped (156g)	55
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Plum	1 medium (66g)	30
Wine	2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)	25
Tomato	1 medium (123g)	22
Lemon	juice of 1 lemon (48ml)	12
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Cinnamon	1 tsp ground (2.6g)	6
Garlic	1 clove (3g)	4
Thyme	1 tsp dried (1.4g)	4
Vinegar	1 tbsp (15ml) distilled	3
Bay Leaf	1 leaf (0.6g)	2
Parsley	1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)	1
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0

Sausages & Green Lentils with Tomato Salsa