Name: Roast Pork with Sweet Potatoes
Ingredients: 1 rib roast of pork (about 7 pounds); 2 tablespoons flour; 1 pint hot water; 1 teaspoon pepper; 1 heaping tablespoon coarse sea salt; sweet potatoes (as needed); apple sauce (for serving)

Why it works: Flour and sweet potato work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 627 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Roast Pork with Sweet Potatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the roast

Wash and dry the pork roast, then place it in a roasting pan.
Dredge the roast with flour.

Roast

Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1 hour or until browned.
Add hot water, pepper, and salt.
Bake for another hour, making a total of 2 hours.
Baste the roast several times.
Turn the roast 2 or 3 times to ensure even browning.
Remove excess grease from the pan.
Make gravy using the drippings.

Add the sweet potatoes and serve

Boil or steam sweet potatoes without peeling until nearly done.
Peel the sweet potatoes.
Add the sweet potatoes to the pan with the roast ½ hour before the meat is done.
Turn the sweet potatoes to brown on all sides.
Serve the roast with apple sauce.

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.

Flour + sweet potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together627 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pepper + sweet potatotop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sweet potato + appletop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together133 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Pork + appletop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,581 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,121 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Pork rib roast: Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and juicy during slow roasting.
Flour: Coats the surface so it browns evenly and thickens the drippings into gravy.
Sweet potatoes: Absorb roasting juices and brown on the outside while staying soft inside.

The step that matters

Add the sweet potatoes ½ hour before the meat is done. Sweet potatoes are pre-cooked until nearly done, so adding them too early can make them mushy while adding them too late leaves them underdone. Timing them to finish with the roast lets them brown in the pan drippings while staying tender.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, flour, pepper, sweet potato, sauce):

Limefits better
Avocadofits better
Coconutfits better
Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, flour, pepper, sweet potato, sauce. 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.