Why it works: Sweet potato and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 314 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Sweet Potato Pie
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the filling
Boil the sweet potatoes until tender, then peel and mash them through a colander.
In a bowl, beat the mashed sweet potatoes with the egg yolks, sugar, salt, and milk until smooth.
Pour the mixture into a pie crust and flavor with lemon.
Bake and top
Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until set.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gradually add powdered sugar to make icing.
Spread the icing over the pie and briefly brown it in the oven.
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.
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Sweet potato + lemontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together314 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sweet potato + milktop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together596 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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Sweet potato + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,151 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 bulk of the filling and its moist, smooth body when mashed.
- Egg yolks
- Enrich the filling and help it set into a sliceable custard when baked.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the filling and adds to its browning during baking.
- Milk
- Adds liquid and richness, keeping the filling smooth and tender as it bakes.
- Egg whites
- Whipped into a stiff foam that forms the light, browned icing topping.
The step that matters
Bake until set. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, so underbaking leaves the filling runny, while overbaking can make it curdle or weep. Watch for a set centre.
Swap the sweet potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, milk, lemon):
- Asparagusfits about as well
- Arrowrootfits about as well
- Sweet potatothe original
- Capsicumfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, milk, lemon. 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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