Name: Grilling: Pork Souvlaki with Pita and Tzatziki
Ingredients: 1/2 cup olive oil; 1 small red onion, finely chopped; 2 garlic cloves, minced; 4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice; 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar; 2 teaspoons Greek oregano; Salt and Pepper; 2 cups of Greek yogurt; 1 English cucumber, peeled and grated; 4 cloves of garlic, minced; 2 tablespoons lemon juice; 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil; 1 1/2 lbs pork loin, trimmed of silver skin and excess fat, cut into 1-inch cubes; Wooden skewers, soaked in water for 30 minutes before use; Pocketless Pita

Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. 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.

Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Garlic + oreganotop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,756 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,665 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Lemon + oreganotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together784 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Clove + oreganotop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together556 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, onion, garlic, clove, red wine, vinegar, oregano):

Plumfits better
Limefits better
Avocadofits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, onion, garlic, clove, red wine, vinegar, oregano. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Pork	100g cooked	242
Olive Oil	1 tbsp (14g)	119
Yogurt	170g plain Greek	100
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Cucumber	1/2 cup sliced (52g)	16
Lemon	juice of 1 lemon (48ml)	12
Clove	1 tsp ground (2g)	7
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Oregano	1 tsp dried (1.8g)	5
Garlic	1 clove (3g)	4
Vinegar	1 tbsp (15ml) distilled	3
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Water	not in our table	0

Grilling: Pork Souvlaki with Pita and Tzatziki