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Lyonnatse Potatoes

A sautéed potato dish with butter, onion, salt, pepper, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Lyonnatse Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the boiled potatoes into not very thin slices.

  2. Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium heat.

  3. Add the sliced onion and cook until browned.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the potatoes, season with salt and pepper, and toss gently for 7 to 8 minutes.

  2. Shape the mixture into an omelet form and let it brown lightly for about 7 minutes.

  3. Fold the potatoes, turn them onto a hot dish, and sprinkle with chopped parsley.

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 crisp to golden at the surface while staying tender inside.
Onion
Softens and browns in the butter, adding sweetness and savory depth to the potatoes.
Butter
Carries heat evenly across the pan and adds richness and browning flavor.

The step that matters

Shape the mixture into an omelet form and let it brown lightly. Leaving the potatoes undisturbed lets a crust form on the bottom through browning reactions. Turning or stirring too early breaks the crust and leaves the dish soft and pale.

Swap the onion

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

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

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