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Yams, Baked

Baked yams served with butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Yam and pepper work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 111 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Yams, Baked

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

  1. Wash and dry the yams.

  2. Bake them in a 400°F (200°C) oven until soft.

  3. Serve on a folded napkin with butter, salt, and pepper.

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. Yam + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together111 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Yam + buttertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together103 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

Yams
Form the main body of the dish; baking softens their starchy flesh until tender.
Butter
Adds fat and richness that melts into the hot flesh, adding moisture and flavor.

The step that matters

Bake until soft. Yams are ready only when the starch inside has fully softened. Pulling them early leaves a firm, chalky center, while the oven's dry heat also sets a skin that needs to be dried first so it can crisp rather than steam.

Swap the yam

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Yamthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper. 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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