Name: Glazed Sweet Potatoes
Ingredients: medium-sized sweet potatoes; salt; butter; sugar

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 ↓

Glazed Sweet Potatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather hot oven

Ingredients

medium-sized sweet potatoes
salt
butter
sugar

Directions

The book says “a rather hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Boil the sweet potatoes in salted water until tender, then drain.
Quickly scrape off the skin and cut the potatoes in half lengthwise.
Arrange the halves in a buttered baking dish.
Spread liberally with butter and sprinkle with sugar.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 to 40 minutes until well browned.
Remove carefully with a flexible knife.

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 + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,151 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sweet potato + buttertop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,491 recipes

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