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Sour Potatoes

A side dish of boiled potatoes and onions flavored with vinegar and pork grease.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sour Potatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the potatoes with skins on.

  2. Pare and slice the potatoes while hot.

  3. Slice the same amount of onions very thin.

  4. Fry some pork and leave about 1 tablespoon of the grease in the pan.

  5. Add 1 teacup of vinegar to the grease.

Cook and serve

  1. Mix the potatoes and onions together, then season with salt and pepper.

  2. Add the potato and onion mixture to the pan and heat through.

  3. Serve hot.

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.

  1. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Potato + porktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the dish and absorb the vinegar and grease for a tender, moist texture.
Onions
Add sharp, savory flavor that contrasts with the sweetness of the potatoes.
Pork
Supplies the fat and drippings that carry flavor through the dish.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dish its sour taste.

The step that matters

Add the potato and onion mixture to the pan and heat through. Heating the potatoes in the pan lets them soak up the hot grease and vinegar; if the pan is not hot enough, the dish stays cold and the flavors do not blend well.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, pork, vinegar, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits about as well
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Tomatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, pork, vinegar, 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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