Skip to main content
Main

Fried Potatoes

Fried potatoes are sliced potatoes fried in lard or dripping, then salted and served with melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Fried Potatoes

Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fried Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and slice the potatoes into ½ inch thick slices.

  2. Wipe the slices dry and coat them in flour.

Fry

  1. Heat lard or dripping in a pan until boiling.

  2. Fry the potatoes until they are light brown.

  3. Drain the potatoes and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately with melted butter in a sauce boat.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the main body of the dish, cooking to a soft interior under a crisp exterior.
Flour
Forms a thin coating that crisps and browns during frying.
Lard or dripping
Conducts heat to fry the potatoes and adds richness and browning.
Melted butter
Adds fat and rich flavour for dipping at the table.

The step that matters

Wipe the slices dry before coating them in flour. Surface moisture turns the flour pasty and steams the potatoes instead of letting the coating crisp in hot fat. Dry slices brown more evenly and stay crisper.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter. 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.

More fried potatoes recipes

French 8Dutch 4and Onions 4Whole 4with Eggs 3German 3 See all 162 →

You might also like

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