Why it works: Potato and sweet potato share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓
Roast Potatoes
Ingredients
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.
Prepare
Select the largest and finest potatoes for roasting.
Wash them thoroughly and place them in a 400°F (200°C) oven with their skins on.
Roast and serve
Roast for about 2 hours, turning them with a fork occasionally.
When well done, serve hot in their skins.
For roasting with meat, peel the potatoes and add them to the pan when the meat is nearly done.
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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Potato + sweet potatotop 22% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Large potatoes
- Their starchy flesh cooks into a fluffy interior while the skin crisps and browns.
- Sweet potatoes
- Add natural sweetness and a softer, moister texture when roasted.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the skins and helps draw out moisture for a crisper surface.
The step that matters
Roasting until well done. Potatoes need long, steady heat so the starch fully gelatinizes and the interior turns soft and fluffy. Turning them occasionally lets the skin brown evenly. Pulling them too early leaves a dense, raw-tasting center.
“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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