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Scalloped Sweet Potatoes

A baked dish of sliced sweet potatoes layered with butter, sugar, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Scalloped Sweet Potatoes

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Scalloped Sweet Potatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Slice the sweet potatoes.

  2. Boil the sliced sweet potatoes in water for 5 minutes.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer the sweet potatoes in a buttered baking dish.

  2. Sprinkle each layer with sugar and dot with butter.

  3. Add just enough milk to prevent the potatoes from floating.

  4. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 30 minutes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Sweet potato + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together596 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Sweet potato + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,151 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

What each ingredient does

Sweet potatoes
Form the bulk of the dish and set into tender layers as they bake.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top brown as it bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown.
Milk
Provides moisture and forms a creamy sauce as it cooks down around the potatoes.

The step that matters

Adding just enough milk. Too little milk leaves the potatoes dry and starchy, while too much makes the dish soupy and stops it setting. Enough milk to keep the potatoes from floating keeps the layers moist and lets the sauce thicken as it bakes.

Swap the sweet potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, milk):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Sweet potatothe original
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Leekfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, 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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