Name: Sweet Potatoes
Ingredients: sweet potatoes; butter; beef drippings

Why it works: Butter and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,847 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Sweet Potatoes

Ingredients

sweet potatoes
butter
beef drippings

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Boil sweet potatoes with their skins on until partly cooked.
Peel the sweet potatoes and cut them in half if desired.
Baste with butter or beef drippings and bake at 400°F (200°C) until browned.
Serve hot or cold as preferred.

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.

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.

Butter + beeftop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,847 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Sweet potato + beeftop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together145 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Sweet potato + buttertop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,491 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).