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Spicy Peanut Noodles with Chicken & Water Chestnuts

An Asian-inspired salad full of crunch and flavour thanks to the addition of peanuts and water chestnuts

By bbcgoodfood · From Open Recipes · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Water chestnut and chicken work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and 204 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 4

Ingredients

Contains: egg, wheat, peanut, soy, sesame (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 bbcgoodfood. 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. Water chestnut + chickentop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together204 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  2. Peanut + sesametop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together349 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-ethyl-3,6-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Water chestnut + sesametop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together112 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Chicken + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together10,839 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, water chestnut, chicken, onion, peanut, garlic, sesame):

  1. Welsh onionbetter flavor fit
  2. Potatobetter flavor fit
  3. Spinachbetter flavor fit
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, water chestnut, chicken, onion, peanut, garlic, sesame. 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).