Name: Vegetables with Sweet Potatoes and Eggplant Curry
Ingredients: 1 tbsp of oil; 375 ml of coconut milk; 250 ml of water; 1 medium minced onion; 1-2 tbsp. of green curry; 10.5 oz of diced sweet potatoes; 9 oz of eggplant cut in fourths; 2 tbsp of grated lime rind; 6 kaffir lime leaves; 2 tbsp. of fish sauce; 2 tbsp of lime juice; 2 tbsp of brown sugar

Why it works: Sweet potato and lime match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 177 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

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.

Sweet potato + limetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together177 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Coconut + sweet potatotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together159 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Coconut + limetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together934 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Sweet potato + eggplanttop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together26 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Eggplant + limetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together53 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Coconut milk: Provides fat and body, making the curry sauce rich and creamy.
Eggplant: Absorbs the sauce and becomes soft and tender during simmering.
Sweet potatoes: Add starch and sweetness, thickening the sauce slightly as they cook.
Fish sauce: Adds savoury depth and salty umami to the curry.
Brown sugar: Balances the sharp lime and spice with sweetness.

The step that matters

Simmer the eggplant and sweet potatoes until just soft. Eggplant and sweet potato cook at different speeds in the liquid. Adding them in the stated order and simmering gently keeps them tender without turning them mushy or leaving them firm.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (coconut, milk, sweet potato, eggplant, lime, fish sauce, sugar):

Capsicumfits better
Okrafits better
Welsh onionfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against coconut, milk, sweet potato, eggplant, lime, fish sauce, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Coconut	1/2 cup shredded (40g)	283
Potato	1 medium (173g) baked	161
Olive Oil	1 tbsp (14g)	119
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Eggplant	1 cup cubed (82g)	35
Lime	juice of 1 lime (44ml)	11
Kaffir Lime	juice of 1 lime (44ml)	11
Soy Sauce	1 tbsp (15ml)	9
Water	not in our table	0

Vegetables with Sweet Potatoes and Eggplant Curry