Why it works: Sweet potato and flour work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 627 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Pineapple and Sweet Potatoes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Drain pineapple and cut into small pieces.
Cook sweet potatoes until tender, then cut into pieces.
Make the sauce
In a saucepan, combine pineapple juice, butter, and flour; cook until thick.
Add sugar to the sauce.
Assemble and bake
Mix fruit and potatoes in a baking dish and pour the syrup over.
Bake in the oven until browned.
Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
| Ingredient | Portion assumed | kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Flour | 1 cup (125g) all-purpose | 455 |
| Potato | 1 medium (173g) baked | 161 |
| Butter | 1 tbsp (14g) | 102 |
| Sugar | 1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated | 49 |
One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.
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. See the original page.
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 + flourtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together627 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
-
Sugar + sweet potatotop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,151 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
-
Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sweet potatoes
- Form the soft, starchy body of the casserole.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and helps browning.
- Flour
- Thickens the pineapple juice into a syrup that holds the dish together.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the top brown in the oven.
The step that matters
Cooking the sauce until thick. Flour needs to be cooked in the hot liquid until it thickens fully. If the sauce is pulled off the heat too early, it stays thin and runs off the potatoes, and the flour taste is not cooked out.
Swap the sweet potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, flour):
- Arrowrootfits about as well
- Shallotfits about as well
- Sweet potatothe original
- Leekfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour. 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.
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