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Quinoa with Dried Cranberries and Toasted Pecans

Quinoa, a tiny, nutritious seed native to the Andes, is high in protein and loaded with niacin, iron, phosphorus and potassium. The cooked seeds are crunchy and nutty, the perfect background for dried fruits and toasted nuts.

By williamssonoma · From Open Recipes · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pecans and quinoa share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 28 recipes mention both. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 4.

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 williamssonoma. 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. Pecans + quinoatop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together28 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Olive + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together23,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Olive + quinoatop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together457 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).

  4. Pecans + olivetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together642 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Quinoa + garlictop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together289 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pecans, olive, quinoa):

  1. Corianderbetter flavor fit
  2. Cuminabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Cinnamonabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pecans, olive, quinoa. 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).