Name: Green Eggs and Ham
Ingredients: Ham; 1 fully cooked and smoked ham, about 8 to 10 pounds; 1/2 cup water or apple juice (I used water); 1 cup apple or mint jelly (I used mint jelly - it was green!); 3 medium tomatillos, husked and minced; 1 cup minced cilantro leaves or 1/2 cup minced cilantro leaves and 1/2 cup minced parsley leaves (I used all cilantro); Eggs; 4 ripe avocados; Juice of 2 to 3 limes; 1 teaspoon salt; 2 tablespoons white onion, minced (optional) I used the onion.; 2 serrano chilies, seeded and minced (optional) I used the chilies.; Cholula sauce (several drops to taste) (I added this as I felt it needed more flavor); Freshly ground black pepper (I added a few grinds of this); 4 ounces of butter or 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil or other light cooking oil, such as canola or sunflower (I used butter); 12 large eggs

Why it works: Avocado and lime match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,117 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. 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.

Avocado + limetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,117 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Parsley + limetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together547 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Avocado + oniontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,653 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Parsley + avocadotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together179 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, apple, parsley, egg, avocado, lime, sauce):

Shallotfits better
Lettucefits better
Welsh onionfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, apple, parsley, egg, avocado, lime, sauce. 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
Sunflower	1 oz (28g) hulled	165
Canola	1 tbsp (14g)	124
Olive Oil	1 tbsp (14g)	119
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Apple Juice	1 medium (182g)	95
Apple	1 medium (182g)	95
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Lime	juice of 1 lime (44ml)	11
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Cilantro	1 tbsp chopped fresh (1g)	1
Parsley	1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)	1
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Water	not in our table	0
Peppermint	not in our table	0
Sauce	not in our table	0

Green Eggs and Ham