Why it works: Sweet potato and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,491 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Sweet Potatoes, Spanish Style
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Boil the sweet potatoes until tender, then let them cool.
Peel the cooled sweet potatoes and slice them into ¼-inch thick rounds.
Fry and serve
Heat clarified butter in a frying pan.
Add a layer of sweet potato slices and fry until golden on both sides.
Drain the fried potatoes and serve on a napkin.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Sweet potato + buttertop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,491 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sweet potatoes
- Cooked first to become tender, then sliced and fried to a golden crust.
- Clarified butter
- Fat for frying that browns the potato slices and adds rich flavor.
The step that matters
Frying until golden on both sides. Clarified butter has no milk solids, so it can heat hotter without burning. Moderate heat and a single layer let the surface brown evenly while the interior stays soft.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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