Skip to main content

Beetroot, Carrot & Chickpea Pittas with Spicy Yogurt

A low-fat sandwich that makes a great lunchbox filler and is packed with healthy goodness

Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Chickpea and yogurt match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 122 recipes mention both. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 2
Prep10 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. Warm the pitta breads in a dry frying pan over medium heat for 1 to 2 minutes per side, or in a toaster, until soft and warmed through.

  2. In a small bowl, stir the harissa into the Greek yogurt until evenly mixed to make the spicy yogurt.

  3. Put the drained and rinsed chickpeas in a bowl and mash them roughly with a fork, leaving some pieces whole.

  4. Add the grated beetroot, grated carrot and torn mint leaves to the chickpeas and toss everything together.

  5. Split each warm pitta open along one edge to make a pocket.

  6. Spread the spicy yogurt inside each pitta, then divide the chickpea and vegetable mixture between them.

  7. Serve the pittas straight away while 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. Chickpea + yogurttop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together122 recipes

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

  2. Beetroot + chickpeatop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together23 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Chickpea + harissatop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together58 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Beetroot + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together698 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Mint + harissatop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together64 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 harissa

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, beetroot, carrot, mint, chickpea, yogurt):

  1. Cuminbetter flavor fit
  2. Dillbetter flavor fit
  3. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  4. Harissathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, beetroot, carrot, mint, chickpea, yogurt. 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).