Name: Sweet Potato Pie
Ingredients: 1 medium sweet potato; 1 cup sugar; ½ cup water; 1 tablespoon shortening; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 lemon; Pastry for pie crust; 1 or 2 eggs (optional); ½ cup milk (if using baked potato and egg)

Why it works: Milk and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Sweet Potato Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make a pastry crust and line pie plates with it.
Peel and wash the sweet potato, then grate it using a large grater.

Make the filling

In a bowl, combine the grated sweet potato, sugar, water, shortening, salt, grated lemon rind, and strained lemon juice.
If using, beat the eggs and mix them into the sweet potato mixture.
If using baked sweet potato, moisten it with milk and mix with beaten egg before adding to the crust.

Bake

Pour the mixture into the prepared pie crusts and bake until set.

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.

Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Sweet potato + lemontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together314 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Lemon + potatotop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,230 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sweet potato + milktop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together596 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sweet potato: Provides the main bulk and sweet, starchy body of the filling.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the filling taste rich and balanced.
Eggs: Help the filling set into a firm, sliceable custard when baked.
Shortening: Adds fat for a tender texture and a smoother mouthfeel.
Lemon: Its rind and juice add aroma and brightness that cut the sweetness.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs coagulate as they heat, so underbaking leaves the filling loose and watery, while overbaking can make it cracked and grainy.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sweet potato, sugar, lemon, egg, milk):

Capsicumfits better
Asparagusfits better
Arrowrootfits better
Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sweet potato, sugar, lemon, egg, milk. 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.