Name: Sweet Potato Pie
Ingredients: 1 tablespoonful of melted butter; 1 large sweet potato; 2 pies; 3 eggs; 1 teacupful of milk; lemon peel; nutmeg; cinnamon

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sweet Potato Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Boil 1 large sweet potato for 2 pies; mash through a wire sieve, 3 eggs, the yolks of which must be beaten up with the potato, sugar to taste, a little grated lemon peel, little nutmeg and cinnamon; grate all up together; 1 teacupful of milk, 1 tablespoonful of melted butter; when ready to make the pies beat the white to a stiff froth and stir in. Make the paste as directed in vol-au-vents.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

520Calories

19 gProtein

26 gFat

57 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 8 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 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
Lemon	juice of 1 lemon (48ml)	12
Nutmeg	1 tsp ground (2.2g)	12
Cinnamon	1 tsp ground (2.6g)	6
Pie	not in our table	0

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

By Margaret Brown. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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.

Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Sweet potato + cinnamontop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together539 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sweet potato + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together414 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

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

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sweet potato, egg, milk, nutmeg, cinnamon):

Vanillafits better
Coconutfits better
Figfits about as well
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sweet potato, egg, milk, nutmeg, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.