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Sweet Potato Fries

I made sweet potato fries in the oven yesterday, and I snacked on them while watching an episode of "Forensic Files" on HLN a...

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Why it works: Sweet potato and garlic work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 631 recipes mention both. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 8
Prep15 min
Cook15 min

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk (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 the oven to 450°F (230°C) and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

  2. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over low heat, add the pressed garlic, and cook for 1 minute until fragrant.

  3. Stir the chili powder, black pepper and seasoned salt (or plain salt) into the garlic butter.

  4. Toss the peeled sweet potato sticks in a large bowl with the seasoned butter until evenly coated, then spread them in a single layer on the sheets.

  5. Bake for 15 minutes, turning the sticks once halfway through, until the edges are browned and the sticks are tender.

  6. While the fries bake, stir the mayonnaise with ketchup or sriracha in a small bowl, adding more to taste.

  7. Sprinkle the hot fries with salt right out of the oven and serve with the dipping sauce.

By thepioneerwoman. 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. Sweet potato + garlictop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together631 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  2. Garlic + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together27,044 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Sweet potato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together85,512 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Sweet potato + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,489 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sweet potato, butter, pepper, ketchup):

  1. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  2. Celerybetter flavor fit
  3. Sagebetter flavor fit
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sweet potato, butter, pepper, ketchup. 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).