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Sweet Potato Curry

A skillet‑cooked sweet potato curry with butter, curry powder, salt, pepper, and soup stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sweet Potato Curry

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a skillet, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the diced sweet potatoes and sprinkle with curry powder.

  3. Brown the sweet potatoes until they are half cooked.

  4. Season with salt and pepper, then cover with soup stock.

  5. Boil until the sweet potatoes are tender.

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. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  2. Sweet potato + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,015 recipes

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

  3. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Sweet potato + buttertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,491 recipes

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

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet potatoes
Provide the bulk of the dish and become soft and tender as they cook.
Butter
Adds fat for browning the sweet potatoes and carries flavor through the pan.
Soup stock
Supplies liquid to simmer the potatoes until tender and flavorful.

The step that matters

Brown the sweet potatoes until they are half cooked. Browning over medium heat develops savory flavor through the Maillard reaction on the cut surfaces. Stopping at half cooked leaves the potatoes firm enough to finish in the stock without falling apart.

Swap the sweet potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Sweet potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, potato. 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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