Name: Southern Sliced Sweet Potato Pie
Ingredients: 1 pint sweet potatoes; ½ cup sugar; 1 teaspoon ground cloves; 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg; 1 pie crust, baked; 2 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces; ¼ cup brandy

Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Southern Sliced Sweet Potato Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

Boil the sweet potatoes until tender, then peel and slice them.
In a bowl, combine the sliced sweet potatoes with sugar, cloves, and nutmeg.

Assemble and finish

Place the sweet potato mixture into the baked pie crust.
Dot the top with small pieces of butter.
Brush the top with brandy before serving.

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.

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.

Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,686 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Sweet potato + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together414 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Sweet potato + clovetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together228 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).
Clove + brandytop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,362 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Nutmeg + brandytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,311 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet potatoes: Provide the main body, soft texture and moisture of the filling.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the filling taste rich and balanced.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, giving the top a smooth, silky finish.
Brandy: Adds aroma and a warm, boozy flavour to the finished top.

The step that matters

Boil the sweet potatoes until fully tender. Potatoes that are undercooked stay firm and fibrous, so they will not mash or blend into a smooth, even filling. Full softening lets the starches break down properly.

Swap the sweet potato

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

Shallotfits about as well
Sweet potatothe original
Arrowrootfits about as well
Parsnipfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, clove, nutmeg, butter, brandy. 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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Southern Sliced Sweet Potato Pie