Olive is a plant with 369 known flavor compounds. The most distinctive molecule is ethyl cyclohexanecarboxylate. It pairs most strongly with garlic, sharing 231 flavor compounds. Olive appears in 61,284 recipes, most commonly in indian cuisine.
Green fatty aldehydes with smoky woody phenolic notes and cheesy dairy character from fermentation.
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), Olive's inventory contains 69. Most of the other 300 compounds are below detection threshold.
+ 57 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 Olive's 369 known compounds break down by aroma category. Percentages are of compounds with a known label.
111 of 369 are distinctive to olive — they appear in under 10% of foods. The remainder are the background most foods share.
Ordered by measured impact in olive — 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 median concentration across published studies. Only 19 of Olive's 369 compounds have a measured concentration in the literature — the rest are confirmed present but not yet quantified. Bars are log-scaled.
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.
Olive 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 Olive side-by-side
Drawn from PubMed + Europe PMC + food-science journals. Click any title to read the full abstract on the original source.
The quantification of volatile compounds in virgin olive oil poses several analytical challenges due to the existence of different concentrations, chemical families, and the possib... Read abstract →
<i>Citri grandis</i> Exocarpium (Chinese name Huajuhong, HJH) is a traditional Chinese medicinal herb widely used in traditional medicines and foods in China due to its efficacy in... Read abstract →
This study monitored the contamination of 32 plasticizers in olive oil throughout the production and storage process. Samples were collected at different stages of production from... Read abstract →
The challenging process of high-quality food authentication takes advantage of highly informative chromatographic fingerprinting and its identitation potential. In this study, the... Read abstract →
In the present study, the chemical constituents and inhibitory effects of Chinese olive leaf tea (OLT) on α-amylase, α-glucosidase, and its lipid-lowering effects on obese mice ind... Read abstract →
