Miso is an additive with 153 known flavor compounds. The most distinctive molecule is 2-methylbutyrate. It pairs most strongly with sake, sharing 51 flavor compounds. Miso appears in 360 recipes, most commonly in miso cuisine.
Korean fermented soybean paste with complex umami. Maillard roasted, nutty undertones, cheesy dairy from fermentation. Meaty animal notes.
Compounds ranked by rarity — the higher the score, the more distinctive to this ingredient.
Of the ~226 molecules that drive perceived food aroma (Dunkel et al. 2014), Miso's inventory contains 26. Most of the other 127 compounds are below detection threshold.
+ 14 more — showing top 12 by class and threshold.
Generalist = appears in >25% of foods (Maillard / fermentation products). Individualist = appears in <5% of foods (carries signature notes). Threshold values are in clean water — the actual perception threshold in a food matrix can differ substantially.
How Miso's 153 known compounds break down by aroma category. Percentages are of compounds with a known label.
17 of 153 are distinctive to miso — they appear in under 10% of foods. The remainder are the background most foods share.
Ordered by measured impact in miso — concentration against odour threshold where both are published, then by how distinctive the molecule is across the graph. Molecules measured here but not established as odorants sit below those that are.
Ranked by how often cooks actually use them together, across 453,403 recipes — the familiar answer first. Each pairing still carries its molecular score and shared-compound count; only the ORDER differs. Counts cover every characterised molecule the two ingredients have in common, not only the aroma-active ones, so they can exceed an ingredient’s aroma-compound count. For the chemistry-first view — where the surprising pairings live — see the molecular network below, the side-by-side comparison, or the Pairing Tool.
Miso and its 10 closest compound-sharing relatives. Spoke thickness = shared compounds; circle size = that ingredient's own compound count. Drag to rearrange, scroll to zoom, click to open.
Compare Miso side-by-side
Drawn from PubMed + Europe PMC + food-science journals. Click any title to read the full abstract on the original source.
Dajiang, a fermented bean-based condiment, is highly popular in Northeast China. In this research, peanut-soybean Dajiang was successfully developed by incorporating peanuts into t... Read abstract →
Space exploration is expanding, which demands new technologies and enables new scientific questions. Food, as a bridge between disciplines, can bring these fundamental and applied... Read abstract →
This study aims to investigate the flavor changes of industrial stir-frying mutton sao zi, a mutton product popular in the northwest of China, at different stir-frying stages. Elec... Read abstract →
The physico-chemical parameters and kinetics of the volatile compounds during the fermentation of Chinese <i>Mao</i>-<i>tofu</i> was investigated. The levels of water soluble prote... Read abstract →
This study revealed the compositional characteristics of sunki, a traditional, unsalted, lactic acid-fermented pickle produced using turnip leaf in Kiso district, Japan. Comprehens... Read abstract →
