Skip to main content

Quinoa Pilaf with Green Apples, Dried Cranberries and Pecans

In this recipe I’ve used classic Thanksgiving flavors like apples and cranberries with quinoa, which may not be that familiar as a Thanksgiving ingredient but I think this mix of these ingredients will become an instant classic.

By tastykitchen · From Open Recipes · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Quinoa and pecans 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 12
Prep10 min
Cook15 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 tastykitchen. 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. Quinoa + pecanstop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together28 recipes

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

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,030 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Celery + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together16,001 recipes

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

  5. Apple + white winetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together357 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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 (quinoa, olive, onion, garlic, pepper, apple, white wine):

  1. Thymebetter flavor fit
  2. Corianderabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Basilabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against quinoa, olive, onion, garlic, pepper, apple, white wine. 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).