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 ↓
Fried Sweet Potatoes
Ingredients
Directions
Peel the sweet potatoes and slice them lengthwise into pieces ¼ inch thick.
Heat lard in a pan until it's not too hot.
Fry the sweet potato slices until soft, then drain them.
Increase the heat of the lard until hot again.
Add the sweet potatoes back into the hot lard, turning them with a skimmer for a few minutes.
Once puffed and browned, drain them on a napkin.
Season with salt and pepper, and serve on a napkin.
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.
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Sweet potato + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,015 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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