Name: Avocado Vegetable Salad
Ingredients: 1 ripe avocado, sliced; 1 cucumber, sliced; 1 tomato, chopped; A few shreds of chili pepper; Mayonnaise or French dressing

Why it works: Avocado and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 299 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Avocado Vegetable Salad

Ingredients

Directions

In a bowl, combine the sliced avocado, cucumber, tomato, and chili pepper.
Serve with mayonnaise or French dressing.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

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 + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together299 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,385 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Cucumber + tomatotop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,405 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Avocado + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,455 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).