Name: Shredded Pork with Roasted Tomatoes and Chipotle Chiles
Yield: Makes 32 pieces, about 8 servings
Ingredients: 8 corn tortillas; Canola oil for frying; 1 pound pork shoulder (pork butt), trimmed of fat, cut into 2-inch pieces; 1 small white onion, quartered; 2 garlic cloves, crushed; 1 tablespoon fine sea salt; 6 ounces Mexican chorizo, removed from casing; 1 tablespoon canola oil; 1 small white onion, halved and thinly sliced; 2 garlic cloves, minced; 2 pounds plum (Roma) tomatoes, roasted, peeled, and chopped; 2 teaspoons dried thyme; 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves; 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon; 2 canned chipotle chiles in adobo, finely chopped; Fine sea salt to taste; 1/2 cup Mexican crema or crème fraîche in a squeeze bottle; 1 ripe avocado, peeled, pitted, and diced

Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Garlic + tomatotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,076 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Corn + tomatotop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,099 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Plum + tomatotop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,480 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Clove + plumtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together446 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

Swap the plum

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, canola oil, pork, onion, garlic, clove, tomato):

Avocadofits better
Limefits better
Coconutfits better
Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, canola oil, pork, onion, garlic, clove, tomato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Pork	100g cooked	242
Avocado	1 medium (150g)	240
Corn Tortilla	1 medium flour (45g)	140
Olive Oil	1 tbsp (14g)	119
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Plum	1 medium (66g)	30
Tomato	1 medium (123g)	22
Chili	1 tsp (2.7g)	8
Cloves	1 tsp ground (2g)	7
Cinnamon	1 tsp ground (2.6g)	6
Garlic	1 clove (3g)	4
Thyme	1 tsp dried (1.4g)	4
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0

Shredded Pork with Roasted Tomatoes and Chipotle Chiles