Why it works: Sweetcorn and tomato work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and 115 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
The recipe
Serves 4Ingredients
Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.
Preheat the grill to high (about 230°C / 450°F). Spread the tortilla chips in an even layer on a large heatproof dish or baking tray.
Scatter the rinsed and drained sweetcorn and half of the finely chopped onion over the chips.
Spoon the chopped tomatoes evenly over the top, then sprinkle the grated cheddar over everything.
Grill for about 4 minutes, until the cheese has melted and is bubbling and the chip edges are crisp.
While the nachos grill, halve the avocado, remove the stone, scoop out the flesh and roughly mash it with a fork together with the remaining onion and most of the coriander.
Scatter the remaining coriander over the hot nachos and serve straight away with the avocado mash on the side.
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.
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Sweetcorn + tomatotop 9% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together115 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Coriander + tomatotop 2% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together3,966 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
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Avocado + coriandertop 2% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together1,094 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Avocado + tomatotop 2% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together1,385 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Avocado + oniontop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together1,653 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Flavor stand-ins for the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (avocado, sweetcorn, coriander, tomato):
- Capsicumbetter flavor fit
- Cucumberbetter flavor fit
- Potatobetter flavor fit
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against avocado, sweetcorn, coriander, tomato. 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).
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