Skip to main content

Candied Cashew and Pear Salad

"This easy and tasty salad is great for a meal or a side with a snappy and sweet taste."

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Red wine and pear share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 64 recipes mention both. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, fruity. The science ↓

The recipe

6 servings
Prep20 min
Cook10 min

Ingredients

Contains: milk, tree nuts (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.

  1. Thaw the raspberries if frozen, then mash them in a bowl and press through a fine strainer to remove seeds, keeping the juice and pulp.

  2. Whisk the raspberry purée with the red wine vinegar and extra virgin olive oil until smooth to make the dressing. Set aside.

  3. Heat the white sugar in a large dry skillet over medium heat, stirring gently, until it melts and turns amber.

  4. Remove from heat, quickly stir in the cashews and ground cinnamon until coated, then spread onto a sheet of parchment paper to cool and harden, about 10 minutes.

  5. Break the cooled candied cashews into rough pieces.

  6. In a large bowl, combine the chopped romaine and baby spinach.

  7. Add the diced pears, dried cherries, and crumbled feta cheese to the greens.

  8. Pour about half the dressing over the salad and toss gently to coat.

  9. Top with the candied cashews and serve immediately, passing the remaining dressing at the table.

By allrecipes. 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. Red wine + peartop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together64 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  2. Olive + feta cheesetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,438 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).

  3. Cinnamon + peartop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  4. Spinach + feta cheesetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Red wine + vinegartop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together569 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the spinach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cinnamon, red wine, vinegar, olive, pear, feta cheese):

  1. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  2. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  3. Cucumberbetter flavor fit
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, red wine, vinegar, olive, pear, feta cheese. 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).