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Sweet Potatoes En Casserole

A baked dish of sweet potatoes layered with butter, sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

Sweet Potatoes En Casserole

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Peel the sweet potatoes and cut them in half lengthwise.

  2. Cover the sweet potatoes with boiling salted water and boil for 5 minutes.

  3. Drain.

Assemble

  1. Melt ½ cup of butter in a casserole dish.

  2. Layer the potatoes in the dish.

  3. Sprinkle generously with maple or brown sugar.

  4. Add another layer of potatoes.

  5. Dot with bits of butter.

  6. Sprinkle with sugar and coarse sea salt.

  7. Cover the dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 20 minutes.

  2. Remove the cover.

  3. If the potatoes seem dry, add a little melted butter and sugar mixed with hot water.

  4. Bake for an additional 10 minutes without the cover.

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 + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,151 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. 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

What each ingredient does

Sweet potatoes
Form the body of the casserole, becoming soft and tender after boiling and baking.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor and keeping the potatoes moist as they bake.
Maple or brown sugar
Adds sweetness and caramelizes on the surface during baking, creating a browned top.

The step that matters

Adding liquid if the potatoes seem dry. Uncovered baking lets moisture evaporate, so the potatoes can dry out. Adding melted butter and sugar dissolved in hot water restores moisture and helps the sugar form a glaze rather than burning.

Swap the sweet potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar):

  1. Sweet potatothe original
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. 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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