Skip to main content
Main

Lyonnaise Potatoes

Sautéed potatoes with onions, butter, parsley, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Tracy, Suzanne. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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. Take one quart of cold boiled potatoes and two tablespoonfuls minced onion.

  2. Add one tablespoonful minced parsley.

  3. Add three tablespoonfuls clarified butter, salt, and pepper.

Cook and serve

  1. Season the potatoes with salt and pepper; brown the onion lightly in the clarified butter; add the potatoes and the parsley, cooking until nicely browned, being careful not to break them.

  2. Serve immediately on a hot dish.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

51Calories
2 gProtein
0 gFat
12 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Parsley1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)1
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Tracy, Suzanne. [from old catalog]. 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. See the original page.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. 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

Cold boiled potatoes
Form the bulk of the dish and brown on the outside when fried in butter.
Clarified butter
Conducts heat for browning and adds rich flavour without milk solids that would burn.
Onion
Browns lightly in the butter, adding sweetness and savory aroma to the potatoes.

The step that matters

Browning the potatoes. Turn them gently and only when a crust forms. Stirring constantly or breaking them up keeps the surfaces from browning, and the crust is what makes the dish.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes