Name: Southern Sweet Potatoes
Ingredients: 6 sweet potatoes; 1 cup brown sugar; 1 egg-sized piece of butter; ½ cup water

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 ↓

Southern Sweet Potatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

6 sweet potatoes
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg-sized piece of butter
½ cup water

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Boil the sweet potatoes until tender.
Cut the potatoes in half lengthwise.

Make the syrup

In a saucepan, combine brown sugar, water, and butter to make a syrup.

Assemble and bake

Pour the syrup over the potatoes.
Sprinkle additional sugar and small bits of butter on top.
Bake in a buttered pudding dish at 300°F (150°C) for about 1 hour.

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.

Sweet potato + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,151 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sweet potato + buttertop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,491 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 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 tender, starchy base of the dish.
Brown sugar: Sweetens the syrup and helps it caramelize and brown in the oven.
Butter: Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and helps the syrup glaze the potatoes.
Water: Dissolves the sugar so it forms a smooth syrup.

The step that matters

Bake until the syrup thickens and browns. At 300°F the sugar and butter must cook long enough to thicken and caramelize into a glaze. Too little time leaves a thin, watery syrup, while the potatoes stay pale and the sugar does not develop its deeper flavor.