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Warm Salad of Asparagus, Bacon, Duck Egg & Hazelnuts

A smart and stylish springtime starter that is superhealthy to boot

By bbcgoodfood · From Open Recipes · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Asparagus and hazelnut work together. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 13 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 6
Prep25 min
Cook25 min

Ingredients

Contains: egg, tree nuts (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. Snap the woody ends off the asparagus and halve any very long spears. Bring a pan of water to a boil, add the asparagus and cook 2 to 3 minutes until just tender. Drain and set aside.

  2. Lower the duck eggs into a pan of gently boiling water and cook 9 minutes until the yolks are set. Cool under cold running water, peel and halve them.

  3. Cut the bacon into strips and fry in a dry pan over medium heat for 6 to 8 minutes until crisp and cooked through. Spoon off most of the fat and keep the bacon warm.

  4. Whisk the hazelnut oil, rapeseed oil, cider vinegar and French mustard in a small bowl until smooth and emulsified.

  5. Warm the drained asparagus in the pan with a spoonful of the reserved bacon fat for about 1 minute, then toss with a little of the dressing.

  6. Arrange the asparagus on serving plates, top with the bacon and halved eggs, and spoon over the remaining dressing.

  7. Scatter the toasted crushed hazelnuts over the salad just before serving while still warm.

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. Asparagus + hazelnuttop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together13 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cider + vinegartop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together402 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  4. Asparagus + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together213 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Hazelnut + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together44 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

Vinegar and mustard share little aroma chemistry, yet 14,067 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Flavor stand-ins for the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, asparagus, hazelnut, cider, vinegar):

  1. Mustardthe original
  2. Shallotabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Cucumberabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Beetrootabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, asparagus, hazelnut, cider, vinegar. 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).