Skip to main content

Boiled Sweet Potatoes

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sweet potato and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,491 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Boiled Sweet Potatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

  1. Wash the sweet potatoes, choosing ones of similar size for even cooking.

  2. Place them in a pot with salted water and boil for about 20 minutes, or until tender.

  3. Drain the potatoes and serve them.

  4. If the potatoes are watery, place them in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 5 minutes.

  5. If peeled, place them in a dripping pan with a little butter and brown 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.

  1. Sweet potato + buttertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,491 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

You might also like

Sweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesRoasted Sweet PotatoesRoasted Sweet Potatoes62 recipes