Welcome to Flavor Tool!

Selecting ingredients

• Each circle represents an ingredient that could go in your salad. The ingredients are color-coded:
• green=vegetable
• orange=fruit
• brown=protein
• tan=grain
• grey=other

There are three ways to manipulate these ingredients:

1. Click to select an ingredient, marking it to include in the salad. Click again to de-select.
2. Double click to lock an ingredient. If you auto-generate a salad, these ingredients will be used as a base. Double click again to unlock.
3. Right click an ingredient to show which other ingredients pair with it. Black lines are strong pairs, grey lines are weaker.
• Mark ingredients to include by hovering over an ingredient and pressing 'select' (or clicking).
• You can mark the ingredients you for sure want by pressing 'lock' (or double-clicking).
• To see which ingredients pair well together, try pressing 'connect' (or right-clicking).
• black=strong pair
• grey=weaker pair
• red=clashing pair

Generating recipes

• Once you've selected some ingredients and locked the ones you for sure want to include, try pressing 'generate' (or hitting spacebar).
• The generator draws on pairings and other data* to select a handful of ingredients that might go well together.
• If you like a generated recipe but want to keep playing around, the 'save' and 'load' buttons will let you save and switch between projects.
• When you're ready to get cooking, just hit 'Get recipe' to plug the selected ingredients into a template** for cooking tasty stir-frys.

Enjoy! :-)

*gratefully gathered from The Vegetarian Flavor Bible (Page, 2014)

**shamelessly adapted from Tassajara Cooking (Brown, 1974)

Ingredients:

Notes:

When it comes to salads, the big ideas (which I've shamelessly lifted from Moosewood Cookbook, Katzen 2014) are:

• Use a big bowl, with plenty of room to toss.
• Use super fresh greens. Wash them thoroughly, and get them absolutely dry (a salad spinner and paper towels works well).
• Have extras chopped and ready to add when assembling. Veg should be in small pieces (clippings, shaings, gratings), other stuff can be whatever size sounds good. Seeds and nuts I'd recommend toasting (toss them on a skillet for a minute or two, no oil, until crunchy) and then cooling in the freezer, but this is optional.
• Dressing can be mixed on the side or added right in the bowl. Moosewood recommends bringing the pepper mill to the table (though I just mix it in), and also including some crushed garlic (which I'm too scared to do).

Instructions:

1. Washing: remove less-than-fresh leaves and cut away any root areas. Place in a bowl of water and swish around, letting dirt settle to the bottem (though I think you could also place in a strainer and toss while running cold water through).
2. Drying: If you have a salad spinner toss the greens and then spin them, then repeat for ~three cycles. Otherwise (or in addition to this), lay greens out on paper towels, then roll them up and shake them some + apply light pressure. Whether you spin or towel, it's a good idea to let the greens sit while you prep the rest, so they can drain further.
3. Extras: If you want to toast nuts/seeds, do that first so they have time to cool in the freezer. Clip/shave/grate veg - however much sounds good (sometimes I take notes after the meal, so I can adjust in the future), and set aside. Cut fruit, crumble cheese, etc., and set aside.
4. Dressing: If you plan on mixing in the bowl, set aside the oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Otherwise, shake or stir it together, til the vinegar and oil doesn't immediately separate (if you have a dressing shaker/pourer, those are cool).
5. Assembly: Place the greens in a large bowl. Add in the extras, while tossing, and then pour on the dressing, also while tossing (you can do it bit by bit). Optional: Moosewood suggests that you can add on a little extra oil at the end, to taste; also that you leave pepper up to guests; also that you add crushed garlic with the dressing, which is too weird for me. I do think it's a good idea to leave extra dressing out on the table.

Bon voyage! :-)