Why it works: Milk and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓
Sweet 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
Make a pastry crust and line pie plates with it.
Peel and wash the sweet potato, then grate it.
Make the filling
In a bowl, combine the grated sweet potato, sugar, water, shortening, salt, grated lemon rind, and strained lemon juice.
If using, beat the eggs and mix them into the sweet potato mixture.
If using a baked sweet potato, omit the water and add enough milk to moisten the potato.
Bake
Bake the filled pie plates in a preheated oven 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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Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,611 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Sweet potato + lemontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together314 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Lemon + potatotop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,230 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sweet potato + milktop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together596 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sweet potato
- Forms the bulk of the filling and gives the pie its body and sweet flavour.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the filling set smoothly while baking.
- Eggs
- Help the filling set into a firm custard when baked.
- Shortening
- Adds fat for a tender, smooth texture in the filling.
- Lemon
- Its rind and juice add aroma and a bright acidity that balances the sweetness.
The step that matters
Bake the filled pie plates until set. Baking until the filling is set lets the eggs coagulate and firm the mixture. Pulling it too early can leave a runny centre, while overbaking can make it cracked or grainy.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sweet potato, sugar, lemon, egg, milk):
- Capsicumfits better
- Asparagusfits better
- Arrowrootfits better
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sweet potato, sugar, lemon, egg, milk. 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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