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
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the filling
Boil the sweet potatoes until tender.
Mash and sift the potatoes through a coarse sieve.
Make the custard
In a bowl, combine the potato pulp with milk, melted butter, eggs, sugar, salt, and nutmeg or lemon. Mix well until smooth.
Bake
Pour the mixture into a pie crust and bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.
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.
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.
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Sweet potato + nutmegtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together414 recipes
Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together14,685 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Sweet potato + milktop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together596 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Eggs
- Bind the filling and help it set into a sliceable custard when baked.
- Sweet potatoes
- Provide the main body and sweet flavor of the filling once mashed.
- Milk
- Adds liquid and richness, giving the filling a smooth, creamy texture.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps balance the flavor of the filling.
- Melted butter
- Adds fat, contributing richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the filling.
The step that matters
Bake until set. Eggs thicken as they heat, so the pie should be baked until the center is just set and no longer liquid. Overbaking can make the custard weep or turn grainy, while underbaking leaves it runny.
Swap the sweet potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, egg, sugar, nutmeg):
- Sweet potatothe original
- Potatofits about as well
- Capsicumfits about as well
- Leekfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, egg, sugar, nutmeg. 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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