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Mango Slaw with Cashews and Mint

The inspiration for this slaw is a mango salad I order way too often from a local Thai place in hopes to offset the inevitable damage from the pad Thai I order with it. It has strips of mango, slivers of red pepper, red onion and mint, large toasted cashews and a spicy dressing with a lot of lime in it. It’s always a surprise; sometimes the mango is underripe and sour (which I understand to be more traditional) and sometimes it’s sweet and almost overripe. The best part is that the salad tastes good no matter how the mango arrived that day.

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Mango Slaw with Cashews and Mint

Why it works: Mango and lime match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 506 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Mango Slaw with Cashews and Mint

Ingredients

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

364Calories
8 gProtein
27 gFat
29 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 9 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Cashew1 oz (28g / ~18 nuts)157
Olive Oil1 tbsp (14g)119
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Napa Cabbage1 cup shredded (89g)22
Limejuice of 1 lime (44ml)11
Chili1 tsp (2.7g)8
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Peppermintnot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By smittenkitchen. Recipe from Open Recipes.

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. Mango + limetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together506 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Lime + minttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together846 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + limetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,491 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  5. Mango + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together471 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mango, cabbage, pepper, lime, rice, vinegar, mint):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mango, cabbage, pepper, lime, rice, vinegar, mint. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.