Name: Bibimbap
Ingredients: Spinach, Mushrooms, Bean Sprouts, Cucumber, Zucchini, Lettuce, Carrot, Ground Beef, Egg, Black Pepper, Salt, Sesame Oil, Gochujang (a hot paste made of soy,used in many Korean dishes and can be purchased in any Korean market.

Why it works: Cucumber and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,409 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, soy, sesame (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Spinach, Mushrooms, Bean Sprouts, Cucumber, Zucchini, Lettuce, Carrot, Ground Beef, Egg, Black Pepper, Salt, Sesame Oil, Gochujang (a hot paste made of soy,used in many Korean dishes and can be purchased in any Korean market.

Directions

Chop the cucumber into thin slices and soak them in salt water for 30 min. Completely drain the water.
Boil spinach and bean sprouts seperately for 10 minutes. Completely drain the water from them and season with salt.
Cut mushrooms and zucchini into thin slices and pan fry them in oil.
Pan fry the ground beef in oil with salt and black pepper to flavor.
Chop the lettuce into thin slices (similar to how they would be chopped for cole slaw).
Fry the egg, over easy.
Place all ingredients over a bowl of rice and serve
Just before eating, add a drop of sesame oil and a spoon of gochujang. Mix and enjoy!

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

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.

Cucumber + lettucetop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together1,409 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mushroom + beeftop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together3,231 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Spinach + lettucetop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together427 recipes

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

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together14,555 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Spinach + carrottop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together870 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (spinach, mushroom, lettuce, carrot, beef, egg, pepper):

Capsicumbetter flavor fit
Asparagusbetter flavor fit
Tomatobetter flavor fit
Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against spinach, mushroom, lettuce, carrot, beef, egg, pepper. 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).