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Lyonnaise Potatoes

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

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

  1. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a skillet and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Add 2 cups of sliced cold potatoes and cook until they absorb the butter, turning often without browning.

  3. In a separate pan, cook 1 tablespoon of butter with 1 tablespoon of sliced onion for 5 minutes.

  4. Mix the onion butter with the potatoes and add ½ tablespoon of finely 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. 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. Pepper + potatotop 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 butter, giving a tender, creamy interior.
Butter
Carries flavor and coats the potatoes, adding richness and helping them brown gently.
Onion
Softens in butter and adds sweetness and savory depth to the potatoes.

The step that matters

Turning the potatoes without browning. Cooking the potatoes in butter over moderate heat while turning often lets them absorb fat and soften evenly. Browning too early can scorch the butter and leave the potatoes unevenly cooked.

Swap the onion

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

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

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