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Almond Mandarin Salad

"Oh, so good and refreshing. Enjoy!"

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mandarin orange work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and 50 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

The recipe

8 servings
Prep20 min
Cook10 min

Ingredients

Contains: tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

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

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

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.

  1. Vinegar + mandarin orangetop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together50 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Mustard + lettucetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,356 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together4,160 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Celery + lettucetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Vinegar + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Vinegar and mustard share little aroma chemistry, yet 14,067 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Flavor stand-ins for the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, vinegar, honey, mustard, olive, lettuce, mandarin orange):

  1. Tarragonbetter flavor fit
  2. Peppermintabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Celerythe original
  4. Thymeabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, vinegar, honey, mustard, olive, lettuce, mandarin orange. 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).