Why it works: Sweet potato and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,151 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Fried Sweet Potatoes
Ingredients
Directions
Slice the cold sweet potatoes thinly.
Heat the butter (or lard and butter mix) in a frying pan.
Add the sliced potatoes to the pan.
Sprinkle the potatoes with sugar and stir continuously until well cooked.
Do not add pepper or salt.
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 + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,151 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Sweet potato + buttertop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
What each ingredient does
- Sweet potatoes
- Form the main body of the dish, cooking down into tender, golden pieces.
- Butter
- Conducts heat in the pan and adds richness and browning to the potato slices.
- Sugar
- Caramelises on the hot surface, adding sweetness and a glossy, browned coating.
The step that matters
Stir continuously after adding the sugar. Sugar burns quickly in a hot pan once it begins to caramelise. Constant stirring spreads the sugar evenly and keeps it from scorching before the potatoes are fully cooked.
Swap the sweet potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar):
- Sweet potatothe original
- Leekfits about as well
- Potatofits about as well
- Capsicumfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar. 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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