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Alligator Pear with Mayonnaise

A salad of alligator pear mixed with mayonnaise, optionally with watermelon and asparagus.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and asparagus work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 363 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Alligator Pear with Mayonnaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the avocado

  1. Slice the alligator pear in half and remove the pit.

  2. Scoop out the flesh and slice it into pieces.

Make the salad

  1. Combine the alligator pear with mayonnaise.

  2. For a salad, mix in diced watermelon and firm subacid rauskmelon.

  3. Drain the boiled asparagus.

Serve

  1. Serve on crackers or bread if desired.

  2. Serve hot or cold on toast or a folded napkin.

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.

  1. Bread + asparagustop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together363 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Pear + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together64 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Pear + asparagustop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Alligator pear
Provides the creamy, soft base that gives the salad its body and rich texture.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and moisture, coating the fruit and binding it into a smooth dressing.
Watermelon
Adds juicy sweetness and moisture, contrasting with the rich, fatty alligator pear.
Firm subacid rauskmelon
Adds firm texture and mild sweetness, keeping the salad from turning mushy.

Swap the asparagus

The recipe marks asparagus as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pear, bread):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pear, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

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