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Lyonnaise Potatoes

A sautéed potato dish with butter, onion, parsley, and optional vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Lyonnaise Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cold boiled potatoes into dice or thin slices and season with salt and pepper.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the minced onion in the butter until yellow.

  2. Add the potatoes and stir gently with a fork until they absorb all the butter.

  3. Sprinkle with chopped parsley and serve hot.

  4. For added flavor, heat the vinegar with the butter before adding.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 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 soak up the butter for a rich, tender texture.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savory aroma as it fries in the butter.
Butter
Provides fat for frying and coats the potatoes, adding richness and flavor.
Vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity that brightens the buttery flavor.

The step that matters

Stirring in the potatoes. Stir gently with a fork so the potato pieces keep their shape and do not break down into mush. Cooked potatoes are already tender, so rough handling crushes them, while gentle folding lets the butter coat each piece evenly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, pepper, parsley, vinegar. 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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