Why it works: Epazote and lime work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 8 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
The recipe
About 2 cupsIngredients
Directions
Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.
Place the tomatillos, jalapeño or serrano chiles, garlic cloves, and chopped white onion in a saucepan, cover with water, and bring to a boil over medium-high heat.
Cook about 8 minutes until the tomatillos turn olive-green and soft. Drain well and let the vegetables cool for 2 minutes.
Transfer the cooked vegetables to a molcajete or bowl. Add the epazote leaves or cilantro and 1 teaspoon kosher salt, then coarsely mash into a chunky salsa.
Scoop the avocado flesh into a separate bowl and mash coarsely with a fork, leaving some texture.
Stir the tomatillo mixture into the avocado along with the lime juice. Taste and add more salt and lime juice as needed.
Serve right away, or press plastic wrap directly onto the surface and refrigerate up to 1 hour to limit browning.
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.
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Epazote + limetop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together8 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Lime + avocadotop 1% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together1,117 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together29,030 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Pepper + limetop 2% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together3,491 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Onion + avocadotop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together1,653 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Flavor stand-ins for the epazote
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, garlic, onion, lime, avocado):
- Corianderbetter flavor fit
- Cuminbetter flavor fit
- Parsleybetter flavor fit
- Epazotethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, garlic, onion, lime, avocado. 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).
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