Why it works: Cranberry and pear share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 25 recipes mention both. Both carry anethole, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓
The recipe
Serves 4Ingredients
Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.
Heat the oven to 200°C (400°F) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan over medium-low heat, add the sliced onions, and cook for 15 minutes, stirring often, until soft and golden.
Unroll the ready-rolled puff pastry onto the lined baking sheet and score a border about 1 cm in from the edge without cutting through.
Spread the cranberry sauce inside the scored border, then spoon the softened onions over the top.
Bake for 15 to 18 minutes until the pastry is puffed and golden at the edges.
Crumble the blue cheese over the hot tart and bake for 3 to 4 more minutes until the cheese softens.
While the tart bakes, separate the Little Gem leaves, place them in a bowl, and add the sliced pear.
Just before serving, toss the lettuce and pear with the salad dressing.
Cut the tart into four pieces and serve warm alongside the pear salad.
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.
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Cranberry + peartop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together25 recipes
Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).
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Blue cheese + peartop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together40 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).
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Olive + lettucetop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together2,400 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Cranberry + lettucetop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together24 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
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Olive + cranberrytop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together127 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Flavor stand-ins for the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, cranberry, sauce, blue cheese, lettuce, pear):
- Tomatobetter flavor fit
- Capsicumbetter flavor fit
- Mustardbetter flavor fit
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against olive, cranberry, sauce, blue cheese, lettuce, pear. 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).
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