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Sweet Potatoes

Boiled sweet potatoes are sliced, fried, and served with cranberry sauce, lettuce, and lean meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Sweet Potatoes

Why it works: Sweet potato and lettuce share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 36 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Sweet Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the sweet potatoes in their jackets until tender.

  2. Let them cool, then peel and slice.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the slices in equal parts butter and oil until golden.

  2. Serve with cranberry sauce, lettuce, and lean meat.

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.

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.

  1. Sweet potato + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together36 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Cranberry + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together24 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Sweet potato + cranberrytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14 recipes

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

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet potatoes
Provide the starchy base that becomes tender inside and sets the fries' texture.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour and helps the slices brown when fried.
Oil
Carries heat evenly through the slices and lets them crisp and turn golden.
Cranberry sauce
Adds sweetness and acidity that contrast with the fried potato.

The step that matters

Frying the slices in butter and oil until golden. Butter browns quickly and can burn before the potato is evenly coloured. Mixing it with oil raises the smoke point and gives steadier heat, so the slices brown without scorching.

Swap the cranberry

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sweet potato, butter, sauce, lettuce, meat):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Limefits about as well
  4. Cranberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sweet potato, butter, sauce, lettuce, meat. 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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