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Spicy Couscous Salad

This can be made as a main-dish salad (great for lunchboxes) or as a side dish for roast lamb

By bbcgoodfood · From Open Recipes · 9 ingredients
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Spicy Couscous Salad

Why it works: Chickpea and almond share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 73 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Spicy Couscous Salad

Serves 2
Prep10 min

Ingredients

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

602Calories
62 gProtein
8 gFat
70 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 9 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Couscous1 cup cooked (157g)176
Chicken100g cooked165
Chickpea1/2 cup canned (120g) drained134
Yogurt170g plain Greek100
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Chili1 tsp (2.7g)8
Almond1 almond (1.2g)7
Peppermintnot in our table0
Harissanot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Chickpea + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together73 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Lemon + minttop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,998 recipes

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

  4. Chickpea + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together527 recipes

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

  5. Chickpea + harissatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together58 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

Swap the harissa

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chickpea, chicken, lemon, pepper, almond, mint, yogurt):

  1. Corianderfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Harissathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chickpea, chicken, lemon, pepper, almond, mint, yogurt. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.