Name: Mashed Yams with Eggs
Ingredients: 2 cups mashed yams, or mashed white potatoes; 2 tablespoons grated onions; 3/4 cup melted palm oil; Salt and pepper to taste; 1 ripe tomato, peeled and diced (optional); 6 hard-boiled eggs

Why it works: Yam and egg work together. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and 49 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

2 cups mashed yams, or mashed white potatoes
2 tablespoons grated onions
3/4 cup melted palm oil
Salt and pepper to taste
1 ripe tomato, peeled and diced (optional)
6 hard-boiled eggs

Also mentioned in the method: milk

Directions

Prepare the yams

Boil yams or potatoes, then mash smoothly with a fork; or, prepare instant mashed potatoes using directions on package, but using water instead of milk.

Make the gravy

Prepare gravy in a saucepan by frying onions and seasoning in palm oil.
Add tomatoes if desired.
Remove from heat.
Mash 2 egg yolks and stir into gravy.

Combine and serve

Stir gravy into mashed yams and mix well until color is even.
Serve into a bowl and decorate with remaining whole eggs.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

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.

Yam + eggtop 26% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together49 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Pepper + tomatotop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together17,913 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + tomatotop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together20,622 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + peppertop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together68,463 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Yam + tomatotop 8% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together33 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Yams or white potatoes: Form the starchy base that gives the dish its soft, thick body.
Palm oil: Fries the onions and carries flavour, adding richness and fat to the gravy.
Hard-boiled eggs: Egg yolks, mashed into the gravy, add richness and help bind it to the yams.
Onions: Softened by frying in oil, they add savoury sweetness and aroma to the gravy.

Flavor stand-ins for the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (yam, onion, pepper, egg):

Potatobetter flavor fit
Capsicumbetter flavor fit
Sweet potatobetter flavor fit
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against yam, onion, pepper, egg. 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).

“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.