Why it works: Potato and chive work together. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 611 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Potato Chips
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut thin slices of raw potatoes.
Soak the slices in cold water and then dry them.
Fry and serve
Place the dried slices in a frying basket and fry in boiling lard until light brown.
Sprinkle with chopped parsley and chives if desired.
Place on a sieve to dry before serving.
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.
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Potato + chivetop 2% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together611 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
-
Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,150 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
-
Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,855 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Raw potatoes
- Form the chips' main body, turning crisp and golden when fried in hot fat.
- Boiling lard
- Conducts heat quickly to cook the slices and browns their surface.
- Chopped parsley
- Adds fresh, herbal aroma and a touch of color to the finished chips.
- Chives
- Adds mild onion-like flavor and fresh aroma to the finished chips.
The step that matters
Drying the slices after soaking. Excess surface water would cool the lard and cause steaming and greasy, soggy chips instead of crisp frying, so the slices must be thoroughly dried before frying.
Swap the parsley
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, chive):
- Garlicfits better
- Capersfits better
- Parsleythe original
- Dillfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against potato, chive. 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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