Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 29,030 recipes mention both. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓
The recipe
Serves 1Ingredients
Contains: milk, wheat, sesame (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.
Bring a small pan of water to the boil, add the broad beans and cook for 2 minutes, then drain and refresh under cold water. Pop them out of their skins if you like.
Put the courgette slices in a bowl, add the harissa paste and 1 tsp of the olive oil, and toss until evenly coated.
Heat a frying pan over medium-high heat with the remaining 1 tsp olive oil. Add the courgette and cook for about 3 minutes, turning once, until charred at the edges and just tender.
In a small bowl, stir together the tahini paste, crushed garlic, a squeeze of lemon juice and the Greek-style yogurt until smooth.
Warm the pitta bread in a dry pan or toaster for about 1 minute, then cut it in half across the top edge to open a pocket.
Spread the houmous inside each pitta half, then spoon in the yogurt and tahini sauce.
Fill the pockets with the charred courgette, broad beans and spring onion, then serve straight away.
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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Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together29,030 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Olive + garlictop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together23,449 recipes
Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
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Olive + yogurttop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together2,633 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).
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Olive + beanstop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together3,080 recipes
Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
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Olive + lemontop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together10,849 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Flavor stand-ins for the tahini
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (harissa, olive, beans, onion, garlic, lemon, yogurt):
- Chickpeabetter flavor fit
- Peasbetter flavor fit
- Sesamebetter flavor fit
- Tahinithe original
Fit is the average pairing score against harissa, olive, beans, onion, garlic, lemon, yogurt. 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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