Why it works: Almond and fig match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 519 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓
Rose Salad
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the rose syrup
Pound the rose leaves and almonds in a mortar and pestle.
Heat the honey in a saucepan until warm, but do not boil.
Add the rose leaf mixture to the honey and strain through a fine strainer.
Assemble and decorate
Arrange the figs in a mound on a glass dish.
Mix the Chartreuse with the rose leaf syrup and pour over the figs.
Decorate the mound with candied rose leaves and fresh roses, adding thin green leaves around the base.
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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Almond + figtop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together519 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Honey + figtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together228 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Rose + almondtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,465 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Almond + honeytop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,069 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Rose + honeytop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together94 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Red roses
- Leaves provide the floral aroma that flavours the honey syrup.
- Almonds
- Pounded into the leaves, they add nutty body and texture to the syrup.
- Honey
- Sweetens the syrup and gives it a thick, moist body that carries the flavour.
- Figs
- Provide the soft, sweet fruit base that the syrup is poured over.
- Chartreuse
- Adds herbal, alcoholic depth and aroma to the rose syrup.
The step that matters
Heat the honey until warm, not boiling. Boiling honey can darken it and dull its delicate floral aroma, so gentle warming keeps the rose flavour clear and the syrup pourable.
“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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