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Sweet Potato Pie

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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

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. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the sweet potatoes, milk, sugar, egg yolks, salt, and lemon juice or brandy.

  3. Line a pie tin with the pie dough.

  4. Pour the sweet potato mixture into the pie crust and bake until light brown.

  5. Beat the egg white until stiff, then add the tablespoon of sugar.

  6. Spread the meringue on top of the pie and return to the oven to brown.

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 + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together314 recipes

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

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  3. Sweet potato + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together596 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Sweet potato + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,151 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Swap the sweet potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, lemon, egg):

  1. Asparagusfits about as well
  2. Arrowrootfits about as well
  3. Sweet potatothe original
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, lemon, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

More sweet potato pie recipes

Southern 5 See all 114 →

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