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Chicken and Cheese Quesadillas with Guacamole, Sour Cream and Mango Salsa

Make dinner in ten minutes with this quick and easy Mexican-inspired recipe from The Hairy Bikers.

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Why it works: Mango and chicken match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and 202 recipes mention both. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 2
Prep30 min
Cook10 min

Ingredients

Contains: milk, 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. Finely dice the mango, half of the yellow pepper, 4 of the cherry tomatoes, 1 spring onion, and the jalapeño. Chop the small bunch of coriander. Mix together in a bowl, add the juice of 1 lime, and season with salt and black pepper to make the mango salsa.

  2. For the guacamole, halve and mash the avocado in a bowl. Add the juice of the other lime, the crushed garlic, 1 chopped spring onion, a little of the chopped coriander, and the crème fraîche. Season with salt and black pepper and stir well.

  3. Dice the remaining yellow pepper, the green pepper half, the red pepper half, and the remaining 4 cherry tomatoes. Finely slice the last spring onion. Grate or chop the cheese.

  4. Shred or dice the leftover cooked chicken. Heat it through in a small pan until steaming hot, at least 165°F (74°C) in the thickest part. Stir in the diced peppers, tomatoes, and spring onion, and season with salt and black pepper.

  5. Spread the chicken and vegetable filling and cheese over half of each flour tortilla. Fold each tortilla in half to enclose the filling.

  6. Cook the quesadillas one or two at a time in a dry nonstick skillet over medium heat for 2 to 3 minutes per side, pressing gently, until golden and the cheese has melted.

  7. Cut each quesadilla into wedges. Serve with the mango salsa, guacamole, soured cream, and the small handful of coriander, chopped or whole for garnish.

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. Mango + chickentop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  2. Lime + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Lime + avocadotop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,117 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Mango + limetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together506 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the cherry tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, mango, onion, lime, avocado, garlic, coriander):

  1. Lemonbetter flavor fit
  2. Coconutbetter flavor fit
  3. Orangebetter flavor fit
  4. Cherry tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, mango, onion, lime, avocado, garlic, coriander. 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).