Name: Avocado Salad
Ingredients: 2 ripe avocados; Salt; Red pepper; Cinnamon; 2 teaspoons prepared mustard; 1 tablespoon vinegar; 2 tablespoons oil; Ice

Why it works: Avocado and cinnamon share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 41 recipes mention both. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Directions

Halve the avocados and cut shallow grooves in the flesh.
Sprinkle salt, red pepper, and cinnamon over the avocado halves.
In a bowl, mix mustard, vinegar, and oil, then pour over the avocados.
Place a piece of ice on top and chill the avocados before serving.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Avocado + cinnamontop 8% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together41 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Mustard + vinegartop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Avocado + mustardtop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together234 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Pepper + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together4,890 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Pepper + mustardtop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together15,427 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Mustard and vinegar share little aroma chemistry, yet 14,067 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Avocados: Provide the creamy, fatty base that makes up most of the salad.
Mustard: Adds sharp flavour and helps the oil and vinegar blend together.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and slows browning of the avocado.
Oil: Adds richness and carries flavour across the avocado.

Flavor stand-ins for the cinnamon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (avocado, pepper, mustard, vinegar):

Tarragonbetter flavor fit
Dillbetter flavor fit
Corianderbetter flavor fit
Cinnamonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against avocado, pepper, mustard, vinegar. 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).

“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.