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Garlic Chicken

This delicious casserole uses whole garlic cloves to add an extra kick of flavour - the result is surprisingly subtle.

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Why it works: Kidney beans and garlic work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 694 recipes mention both. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 1-2
Prep30 min
Cook1 hr

Ingredients

Contains: 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.

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C). Wrap the 3 whole garlic heads tightly in foil and roast for 40 minutes until soft.

  2. Put the cooked chicken breast in a small dish, cover with foil, and heat in the oven for the last 15 minutes until hot through to 165°F (74°C) in the thickest part.

  3. Halve the new potatoes and boil them in a pan of water for 15 minutes until tender. Drain well.

  4. Steam the green beans over a pan of boiling water for 5 to 7 minutes until just tender. Keep warm.

  5. Dice the orange pepper and simmer it in a splash of water for 5 minutes until soft. Drain the canned kidney beans, rinse them, and add them to the pan to heat through for 3 minutes.

  6. In a small saucepan, whisk the plain flour, vegetable bouillon powder and paprika into the boiling water until smooth. Stir in the yeast extract and simmer for 3 minutes until thickened.

  7. Squeeze the soft garlic out of its skins and mash it into the gravy, or serve it alongside.

  8. Slice the chicken and arrange it on a plate with the potatoes, green beans and the pepper and bean mixture. Spoon the garlic gravy over the chicken and serve.

By bbcfood. 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. Kidney beans + garlictop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together694 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  2. Kidney beans + green beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6 recipes

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

  3. Potato + green beanstop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together81 recipes

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

  4. Potato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,512 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Chicken + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,756 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, chicken, potato, kidney beans, garlic, flour, green beans):

  1. Limebetter flavor fit
  2. Lemonbetter flavor fit
  3. Cherrybetter flavor fit
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, chicken, potato, kidney beans, garlic, flour, green beans. 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).