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Butternut Squash with Spiced Lentils & Feta

There's no need to peel the tough outer skin from the squash for this great-looking dish

By bbcgoodfood · From Open Recipes · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Butternut squash and pomegranate share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 17 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 6

Ingredients

Contains: milk, tree nuts (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. Butternut squash + pomegranatetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Lentils + cumintop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together308 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cumin + cinnamontop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,103 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  5. Butternut squash + lentilstop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together24 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the cinnamon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butternut squash, olive, lentils, onion, garlic, cumin, pepper):

  1. Turmericbetter flavor fit
  2. Corianderbetter flavor fit
  3. Oreganobetter flavor fit
  4. Cinnamonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butternut squash, olive, lentils, onion, garlic, cumin, pepper. 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).