Why it works: Potato and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,668 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓
Fried Potatoes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut cold boiled potatoes into slices ½ inch thick.
Fry and season
Heat a frying pan and grease it with bacon fat or salt pork fat.
Fry the potato slices until brown on both sides.
Season with coarse sea salt and a little black pepper.
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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Potato + porktop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,668 recipes
Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
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Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,305 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,121 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cold boiled potatoes
- Form the main body of the dish; their starch crisps and browns when fried.
- Bacon fat or salt pork fat
- Conducts heat to the potato surfaces and adds savory, rich flavor for browning.
The step that matters
Fry until brown on both sides. Browning depends on the surface being dry and the pan hot and greased enough. Crowding the pan or moving the slices too early traps steam, leaving them pale and soft instead of golden.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, pepper):
- Capsicumfits better
- Potatothe original
- Tomatofits less well
- Carrotfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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