Why it works: Sweet potato and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 137 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Dinner No. I
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Cook the pork chops in a skillet until browned and cooked through.
Slice apples and fry them in butter until soft and caramelized.
Bake sweet potatoes in a 400°F (200°C) oven until tender, about 45 minutes.
Serve with slices of bread.
Prepare rice pudding by cooking rice with milk and sugar until creamy. Serve warm.
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 + ricetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together137 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
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Pork + ricetop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,137 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Bread + ricetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,259 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
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Apple + sweet potatotop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together133 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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Pork + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,371 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, sweet potato, bread, rice):
- Coconutfits better
- Avocadofits better
- Pumpkinfits about as well
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against pork, sweet potato, bread, rice. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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