Name: Potato Pie
Ingredients: three pints of milk to a pint of pulp; a pint of pulp; a tablespoonful of melted butter; six sweet potatoes; two eggs; salt; nutmeg

Why it works: Sweet potato and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 414 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

Potato Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

Boil six sweet potatoes.
Mash and sift them through a coarse sieve.
Add three pints of milk to a pint of pulp, a tablespoonful of melted butter, two eggs, a teacup of sugar, one-half a teaspoonful salt, nutmeg or lemon to flavor.

Bake

Bake with an under crust of rich paste.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

502Calories

19 gProtein

26 gFat

51 gCarbs

What these numbers assume: 6 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Potato	1 medium (173g) baked	161
Milk	1 cup (244ml) whole	149
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Nutmeg	1 tsp ground (2.2g)	12
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Clarke, Mary Lamson. [from old catalog]. 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. 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 + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together414 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,685 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Milk + sweet potatotop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together596 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together24,377 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet potatoes: Provide the starchy pulp that forms the body of the filling.
Eggs: Help the filling set and hold its shape when baked.
Milk: Adds moisture and creaminess to the pulp.
Butter: Adds richness and fat for a smoother texture.