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Baked Sweet Potato

A baked sweet potato loaf flavored with cinnamon, pepper, allspice, butter, eggs, and milk, served with asparagus.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Jacqueline Harrison Smith (ed.) · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 21 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and sweet potato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 539 recipes mention both. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the potato base

  1. Combine six grated sweet potatoes with 1 tablespoonful cinnamon, 1 teaspoonful black pepper, 1 teaspoonful allspice, small teacup sugar, ½ teacup lard, ½ teacup butter, 2 raw eggs, and a small cup of milk or cream just before baking.

Make the custard

  1. Cook 2 tablespoons of butter and 2 tablespoons of flour together, add half a teaspoon of salt, a dash of pepper, and 1 cup of cream gradually.

  2. When boiling, add 2 tablespoons of cold chicken chopped fine, 1 cup of cooked asparagus tips, and 4 well beaten eggs (whites and yolks together).

Bake and serve

  1. Turn the mixture into an earthen bowl or mould holding 1 pint, thickly buttered and lined with asparagus.

  2. Cook standing in a dish of hot water until the centre is firm, ensuring the water around the mould does not boil.

  3. Let stand a few moments after removing from oven, then invert over a serving dish.

  4. Serve with cream sauce.

Sauce

  1. Prepare sauce for Asparagus Loaf: combine half a pint of milk, a level teaspoon of butter, 1 level tablespoon of flour, ½ teaspoon of salt, and ¼ teaspoon of pepper.

  2. Add chopped asparagus tips and a few mushrooms to the sauce for improved flavor.

By Jacqueline Harrison Smith (ed.). 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Cinnamon + sweet potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together539 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Milk + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together81,222 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Cream + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together41,494 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and set into a firm, sliceable custard when heated.
Sweet potatoes
Provide the bulk and starchy body of the loaf.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream base into a smooth sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the potato base and the sauce.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the potato mixture for a soft texture.

The step that matters

Cook standing in a dish of hot water until the centre is firm. Gentle, indirect heat lets the egg custard set evenly. If the water boils, the eggs can overcook, curdle and turn the loaf grainy or watery.

Flavor stand-ins for the asparagus

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

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Potatobetter flavor fit
  3. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, pepper, allspice, cream, milk, sweet potato, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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