Name: Mashed Sweet Potatoes
Ingredients: sweet potatoes; coarse sea salt; black pepper; butter

Why it works: Sweet potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,015 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Mashed Sweet Potatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

sweet potatoes
coarse sea salt
black pepper
butter

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.

Wash the sweet potatoes and boil them until tender.
Remove the skins and mash the potatoes.
Add coarse sea salt, black pepper, and butter to the mashed potatoes.
Place the mixture in a 400°F (200°C) oven for five minutes 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.

Sweet potato + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sweet potato + buttertop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,491 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).