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Fried Potatoes

Fried potatoes are thinly sliced potatoes fried in butter and lard, seasoned with pepper and coarse sea salt.

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

Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fried Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the potatoes thinly.

  2. Heat a little butter in a pan.

  3. Add pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

  4. Cut the potatoes into small rhomboidal pieces.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat the lard or clarified grease until hot.

  2. Fry the potato pieces until they are delicately colored.

  3. Remove them and place them on a sieve to drain.

  4. Sprinkle with salt and serve immediately in a hot dish.

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. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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; their starch becomes tender inside while the outside crisps and colors when fried.
Lard or clarified grease
Conducts heat for frying, browning the potato surfaces evenly and giving them a rich flavor.
Butter
Adds fat and a rich, nutty aroma to the pan.

The step that matters

Fry the potato pieces until they are delicately colored. The grease must be hot before the potatoes go in, so the surfaces seal and brown quickly instead of soaking up fat. Color comes from Maillard browning, which turns quickly from pale gold to dark, so the pieces should be removed as soon as they reach the delicate color described.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Carrotfits less well
  4. Onionfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper. 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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