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Dessert

Fritters of Sweet Potatoes

Sweet potato slices marinated in brandy and lime juice, coated in flour batter, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sweet potato and lime match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 177 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Fritters of Sweet Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Peel and slice the sweet potatoes.

  2. Marinate the slices in brandy and lime juice for 30 minutes.

Batter and fry

  1. In a bowl, mix flour and water to create a batter.

  2. Dip the marinated sweet potato slices in the batter.

  3. Heat oil in a pan and fry the battered slices until golden brown.

  4. Drain on paper towels before serving.

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 + limetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together177 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Sweet potato + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together627 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Lime + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sweet potato + brandytop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together100 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Brandy + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,181 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet potatoes
Form the main body of the fritter, becoming soft and sweet inside as they cook.
All-purpose flour
Forms the batter that coats the slices and crisps into a golden crust when fried.
Lime juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the sweet potato.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor to the sweet potato slices during marinating.

The step that matters

Frying the battered slices until golden brown. The oil must be hot enough to set the batter quickly. If it is too cool, the batter absorbs oil and turns greasy instead of crisp, and the sweet potato inside may stay undercooked.

Swap the lime

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Limethe original
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sweet potato, brandy, flour. 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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