Why it works: Sweet potato and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,151 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Sweet Potatoes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Peel and cut the sweet potatoes into even pieces.
Add the sweet potatoes and enough water to cover them to a pot.
Bring to a boil and cook until tender.
Drain the water and return the sweet potatoes to the pot.
Season and brown
Add lard, sugar, and salt, then stir to combine.
Cook over low heat until the sweet potatoes brown slightly.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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 + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,151 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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 dish, becoming soft and tender when boiled.
- Lard
- Adds fat that carries flavor and helps the potatoes take on color when cooked.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during gentle cooking.
The step that matters
Cook over low heat until the sweet potatoes brown slightly. Sugar darkens quickly when it caramelizes, so low heat lets the potatoes brown evenly without scorching or turning bitter.
“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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