Name: Banana Flower Salad
Yield: Serves 4
Ingredients: 100 g chicken breast or pork fillet, sliced; 200 g green king prawns, shelled and; de-veined; 2 tbsp lime juice; 1 banana flower (about 200 g); 1 tbsp sliced shallots; 2 tbsp cashews or peanuts, roasted and crushed; Finely sliced long red chilli; Fried shallots; Handful of coriander leaves; 2 tbsp fish sauce; 3 tbsp lime juice; 1 tbsp grated palm sugar; 1 tbsp roasted chilli paste; 2 tsp Thai roasted chilli powder; 3 tbsp coconut milk

Why it works: Lime and coriander match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,536 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. 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.

Lime + coriandertop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,536 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together528 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Lime + shallottop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together258 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Lime + peanuttop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together458 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Banana + peanuttop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together308 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, lime, banana, peanut, coriander, fish sauce, sugar):

Capsicumbetter flavor fit
Sweet potatobetter flavor fit
Tomatoabout as good a flavor fit
Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, lime, banana, peanut, coriander, fish sauce, sugar. 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).

Banana Flower Salad