Why it works: Mustard and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Melon Mangoes
Ingredients
Directions
Cut a square piece out of one side of the melon and remove the seeds.
Mix the seeds with mustard seeds and shredded garlic.
Stuff the melon with the mixture and replace the square piece.
Bind it up with packthread.
Boil vinegar with peppers, salt, and ginger, then pour it over the mangoes for four consecutive days.
On the last day, add flour of mustard and scraped horseradish to the boiling vinegar.
Ensure the mangoes are well covered with vinegar.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Mustard + horseradishtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,832 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Garlic + horseradishtop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together719 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Mustard + garlictop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together4,053 recipes
Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
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Garlic + gingertop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,402 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Melon + gingertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together342 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the melon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, garlic, vinegar, pepper, ginger, flour, horseradish):
- Limefits better
- Lemonfits better
- Avocadofits better
- Melonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, garlic, vinegar, pepper, ginger, flour, horseradish. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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