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The Best Salad Niçoise

Balmy days and nights call for light dishes that are as easy to prepare as they are packed with summer flavour. This salad ticks all the boxes

By bbcgoodfood · From Open Recipes · 10 ingredients
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The Best Salad Niçoise

Why it works: Beans and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 500 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

The Best Salad Niçoise

Serves 4

Ingredients

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

687Calories
34 gProtein
33 gFat
66 gCarbs

Counts 9 of 11 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 9 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Salmon100g cooked208
Potato1 medium (173g) baked161
Olive Oil1 tbsp (14g)119
Cherry1 cup (138g)87
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Tomato1 medium (123g)22
Lettuce1 cup shredded (36g)5
Olive1 large (4g)4
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Beannot in our table0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Beans + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together500 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Cherry tomato + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Beans + olivetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,470 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Beans + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together655 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Lettuce + olivetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

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

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

Swap the cherry tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, egg, potato, lettuce, olive, white wine, vinegar):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Cherryfits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Cherry tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, egg, potato, lettuce, olive, white wine, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.