Name: Panada
Ingredients: sweet potatoes; yams; cassava; sugar cane; water

Why it works: Yam and cassava share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Panada

Ingredients

Directions

Gather a variety of vegetables such as sweet potatoes, yams, cassava, and sugar cane.
Chew the vegetables and spit the mixture into a large earthenware crock filled with warm water.
Bake cassava cakes on a hot stone disc and add them to the crock.
Stir the mixture thoroughly and cover the crock with a wicker lid.
Allow the mixture to ferment for two to three days before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Yam + cassavatop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Sweet potato + yamtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together99 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Sweet potato + cassavatop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Sweet potato + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,151 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Yam + sugartop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together73 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).