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Crunchy Beetroot Slaw with Grilled Chicken

This sweet, earthy salad makes a great healthy accompaniment to chicken or salmon

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Why it works: Beetroot and hazelnut share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 23 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 2
Prep20 min
Cook20 min

Ingredients

Contains: 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. Heat a grill pan or skillet over medium-high heat. Brush the flattened chicken breasts with 1 tbsp of the olive oil and season nothing beyond what is listed.

  2. Grill the chicken for 5 to 6 minutes per side until it reaches 165°F (74°C) in the thickest part. Rest on a board for 3 minutes, then slice.

  3. Meanwhile, coarsely grate the peeled beetroot and the peeled red apple. Toss the apple with the lemon juice to keep it from browning.

  4. Wash the beetroot leaves, pat dry and roughly shred them. Add them to a large bowl with the grated beetroot, apple and rocket leaves.

  5. In a small bowl, whisk the red wine vinegar with the remaining 1 tbsp olive oil. Pour over the slaw and toss to combine.

  6. Scatter the roughly chopped toasted hazelnuts over the slaw. Pile the sliced chicken on top and serve while the chicken is 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. Beetroot + hazelnuttop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together23 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Apple + red winetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together147 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  3. Chicken + olivetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10,796 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid hexyl ester (sweet, green).

  4. Red wine + vinegartop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together569 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Olive + vinegartop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together10,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, olive, apple, beetroot, hazelnut, red wine, vinegar):

  1. Pearbetter flavor fit
  2. Grapebetter flavor fit
  3. Plumbetter flavor fit
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, olive, apple, beetroot, hazelnut, red wine, 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).