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Mango, Orange, Grapefruit, Avocado, and Pistachio Salad

"After having a similar salad at a restaurant I had to try to re-create it."

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Why it works: Avocado and pistachio share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 17 recipes mention both. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

The recipe

6 servings
Prep40 min

Ingredients

Contains: milk, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Peel and slice the mangos. Section the grapefruit and oranges over a bowl to catch the juice, removing the membranes, then set the sections aside.

  2. Peel, pit, and dice the avocados. Toss them gently with a spoonful of the reserved citrus juice to keep them from browning.

  3. Coarsely chop the pistachios and set them aside. Chop the romaine lettuce into bite-sized pieces and place it in a large salad bowl.

  4. Add the mango slices, grapefruit and orange sections, and diced avocado to the lettuce.

  5. Pour the balsamic vinaigrette over the salad and toss gently so everything is coated without crushing the fruit.

  6. Divide the salad among plates or arrange it on a platter. Scatter the crumbled blue cheese and chopped pistachios over the top and serve right away.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Avocado + pistachiotop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Grapefruit + orangetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Lettuce + avocadotop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together464 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Lettuce + grapefruittop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together117 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Mango + orangetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (blue cheese, mango, grapefruit, orange, avocado, pistachio):

  1. Lettucethe original
  2. Tomatoabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against blue cheese, mango, grapefruit, orange, avocado, pistachio. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).