Name: Sugared Beets
Ingredients: 4 hot boiled beets; 3 tablespoons butter; 1½ tablespoons sugar; ½ teaspoon salt

Sugared Beets

Sugared Beets are boiled beets cut into slices, sweetened with butter, sugar, and salt, then reheated.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription

Why it works: Butter and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98,233 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Sugared Beets

Ingredients

4 hot boiled beets
3 tablespoons butter
1½ tablespoons sugar
½ teaspoon salt

Directions

Cut beets into one-fourth inch slices.
Add butter, sugar, and salt.
Reheat for serving.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

186Calories

1 gProtein

12 gFat

21 gCarbs

What these numbers assume: 4 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Beet	1/2 cup (85g)	35
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 Fannie Merritt Farmer. 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.

Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Beets: Forms the main body of the dish and supplies its earthy, natural sweetness.
Butter: Adds fat and richness that coats the slices and carries flavor.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the slices take on a light glaze in the melted butter.

“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.