Skip to main content

Boiled Sweet Potatoes

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 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

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Wash the sweet potatoes thoroughly with a cloth or brush, removing all dirt.

  2. Clip the edges of any roots that adhere.

  3. Boil the potatoes in a kettle of boiling water until easily pierced with a fork.

  4. Drain the water and set the kettle on low heat.

  5. Cover and let the potatoes steam for about 5 minutes.

  6. Peel the potatoes and serve with drawn butter sauce or cut into slices, spread with butter, and briefly bake in the oven.

  7. Serve hot with daubes, fish, grillades, or alongside roast pork.

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