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Couscous Mandarin Recipe

This is a recipe for sweet couscous, what we once tasted in a Czech tea house, "cajovna". It's really easy and fast to make and the spices give a nice, exotic...

By chow · From Open Recipes · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 5,390 recipes mention both. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Couscous Mandarin Recipe

4 cups

Ingredients

Directions

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

By chow. 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. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together5,390 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Nuts + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon share little aroma chemistry, yet 30,779 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 nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, sugar, cinnamon, raisin):

  1. Almondbetter flavor fit
  2. Chestnutbetter flavor fit
  3. Pistachiobetter flavor fit
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, sugar, cinnamon, raisin. 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).