Name: Salad with Spicy Peanut Sauce
Ingredients: FOR THE SALAD; 3 tb Vegetable oil; Salt to taste; 1 lb Firm tofu; patted dry -- and cut into 1/4" cubes; 2 sm Potatoes; boiled -- cut into bite-size wedges; 1/2 lb Fresh spinach; cleaned -- steamed, and chopped; 1/2 sm Head green cabbage; shredded -- and lightly steamed; 1/2 lb Mung bean sprouts -- washed thoroughly; FOR THE DRESSING; 4 Garlic cloves; 1/4 c Roasted peanuts; 5 ts Soy sauce or tamari; 3 tb Lime or lemon juice; 4 ts Brown sugar; 1/4 ts Cayenne pepper; 2 tb Water

Why it works: Spinach and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,435 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. 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.

Spinach + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,435 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Spinach + mung beantop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together15 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Mung bean + garlictop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together63 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Potato + garlictop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,517 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Mung bean + peanuttop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Firm tofu: Browning in hot oil gives the cubes a crisp, golden surface and a firmer bite.
Peanuts: Blended into the dressing, they add body, richness and nutty flavor.
Soy sauce or tamari: Adds salty, savory depth to the dressing.
Lime or lemon juice: Brings acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the sugar and heat.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness that rounds out the sharpness of the citrus and the cayenne.
Potatoes: Boiled wedges add starchy bulk that soaks up the dressing.

The step that matters

Frying the tofu in batches. Crowding the pan drops the oil temperature and steams the tofu instead of browning it. Patting the cubes dry first also helps them brown rather than spatter and stew.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tofu, potato, spinach, cabbage, mung bean, garlic, peanut):

Turmericfits better
Cuminfits better
Corianderfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tofu, potato, spinach, cabbage, mung bean, garlic, peanut. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Potato	1 medium (173g) baked	161
Olive Oil	1 tbsp (14g)	119
Tofu	100g firm	76
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Green Cabbage	1 cup shredded (89g)	22
Lemon	juice of 1 lemon (48ml)	12
Lime	juice of 1 lime (44ml)	11
Soy Sauce	1 tbsp (15ml)	9
Chili	1 tsp (2.7g)	8
Spinach	1 cup raw (30g)	7
Garlic	1 clove (3g)	4
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Salad	not in our table	0
Mung Bean	not in our table	0
Roasted Peanut	not in our table	0
Water	not in our table	0

Salad with Spicy Peanut Sauce