Why it works: Yam and nutmeg share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Yams, American
Ingredients
Directions
Cut yams into slices ½ inch thick and shape into rounds the size of a tea cup.
Wash, drain, and dry the yams thoroughly.
Place yams in a well-buttered saucepan and season with a little coarse sea salt and grated nutmeg.
Moisten with water, cover tightly, and simmer gently until cooked, about 45 minutes.
Turn yams frequently for even coloring on both sides.
Transfer to a dish and pour sweetened and flavored white sauce around them before serving.
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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Yam + nutmegtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together29 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together24,377 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Yam + saucetop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Nutmeg + saucetop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,244 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the yam
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, nutmeg, sauce):
- Shallotfits better
- Chivefits about as well
- Mustardfits about as well
- Yamthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, nutmeg, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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