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Scalloped Sweet Potatoes

A baked dish of sliced sweet potatoes layered with butter and boiled water, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Scalloped Sweet Potatoes

Why it works: Pepper and sweet potato 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 ↓

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. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Sprinkle the sliced sweet potatoes with salt and pepper.

  3. Butter a large, shallow dish and spread the potatoes in it, making a layer no thicker than 1 inch.

Bake and brown

  1. Melt the butter in the boiling water and sprinkle one‑quarter of this liquid over the potatoes.

  2. Bake the potatoes for 10 minutes.

  3. Sprinkle another quarter of the liquid over the potatoes and bake for another 10 minutes.

  4. Repeat this process one more time, then let the dish bake for an additional 10 minutes to brown.

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. Pepper + sweet potatotop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,015 recipes

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

  2. Butter + sweet potatotop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,491 recipes

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

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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, becoming tender and soft as they bake.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the top brown and the potatoes taste rich.
Boiling water
Carries melted butter over the potatoes, adding moisture as the dish bakes.

The step that matters

Spreading the potatoes in a thin layer. A layer no thicker than 1 inch lets heat reach the centre so the potatoes cook through and the top can brown evenly rather than staying pale and dense.

Swap the sweet potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Sweet potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper. 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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