Skip to main content
Main

Potatoes, a LA Lyonnaise

Sautéed potatoes with butter, onion, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Potatoes, a LA Lyonnaise

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped onion and fry until soft.

  3. Add the diced potatoes and stir until heated through, but not browned.

  4. Stir in the chopped parsley before serving.

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

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

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

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

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cold boiled potatoes
Provide the bulk of the dish and a soft, starchy texture once heated.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavor and helps the potatoes warm and coat evenly.
Onion
Softens and turns sweet and aromatic as it fries in the butter.

The step that matters

Stir in the potatoes and heat them through without browning. The potatoes are already cooked, so they only need warming. Over-stirring or high heat dries the surfaces, which lets browning set in and can break the diced pieces apart.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, onion. 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

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes