Glossary
Every ingredient carries two independent dimensions: weight — how much space it takes up on the palate — and volume — how loudly it speaks once it's there. Season tells you when it's at its best, and pairing tiers tell you what to put beside it. Together, they're less a ranking than a way of reading a dish before you cook it.
Palate
Weight measures how much an ingredient fills the palate — its density, richness, and how long it lingers on the tongue. It isn't about literal mass; a delicate herb and a hunk of beef can share a plate, but only one of them will fill it.
Barely there on the palate — clears the mouth rather than filling it. Cucumber, radish, citrus zest. Built to lift a dish, not anchor it.
A gentle presence. Adds character without weighing a dish down — fresh herbs, leafy greens, delicate white fish.
Holds its own on the plate without dominating it. Most vegetables, poultry, and soft cheeses live here.
Substantial and satisfying — starts to anchor a dish. Root vegetables, pork, aged cheeses.
Rich, dense, and lingering. Built to be the centre of a dish — braises, offal, dark chocolate, rendered fats.
Presence
Volume is separate from weight — it measures how assertively a flavour announces itself, regardless of how much of the plate it occupies. A featherweight ingredient can still shout, and a dense one can stay remarkably quiet.
Recedes into the background. Supports and rounds out other flavours without asking for attention — rice, milk, potato.
Present and identifiable, but plays well with others. Contributes without overpowering — carrots, chicken, most cheeses.
Demands attention and needs to be balanced or used deliberately — garlic, blue cheese, cumin.
Dominates whatever it touches. A little goes a long way — chili, fish sauce, truffle.
Timing
Season tags mark when an ingredient is at its peak — when flavour, texture, and availability are all working in your favour. Cooking with the season is usually the difference between a good dish and a great one.
Spring
Fresh green growth — asparagus, peas, spring lamb, young herbs.
Summer
Peak ripeness and abundance — tomatoes, stone fruit, corn, basil.
Autumn
Harvest and hearty roots — squash, apples, mushrooms, game.
Winter
Stored, cured, and slow-cooked — citrus, root vegetables, braises.
Year-round
Reliably available whatever the season — onions, garlic, dairy, grains.
Compatibility
Every pairing is ranked by tier — not by how often it's been seen, but by how well two flavours actually work together on the plate.
Holy Grail
A defining combination — pairings that have earned their place through generations of cooking, like tomato and basil, or lamb and mint. Build a dish around these.
Highly Recommended
Consistently excellent and dependable — a strong choice whenever you want a pairing to simply work, without it needing to be the star.
Recommended
Solid and versatile — worth reaching for, especially alongside a Holy Grail or Highly Recommended anchor to round out a dish.
Compatible
Won't clash, and can fill out a plate, but won't be the reason a dish sings. Useful when you need breadth over intensity.
Visual
The node web is a map of an ingredient's pairings. The ingredient you're viewing sits at the centre; each connected node is a pairing, with line thickness and node size signalling tier — thick, bright connections for Holy Grail pairings, thin and muted ones for Compatible pairings. Tap any node to jump to that ingredient and explore its own web in turn — zoom and drag to keep going.