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Lyonnaise Potatoes

A dish of cold boiled potatoes tossed with cream, parsley, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,855 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Lyonnaise Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut cold boiled potatoes into dice.

Cook

  1. In a stew pan, add enough cream to keep the potatoes moist and simmer until hot.

  2. Ensure the potatoes are a light color.

Finish and serve

  1. Mix in a little chopped parsley and butter.

  2. Serve immediately while hot.

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. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold boiled potatoes
Provide the main body of the dish, holding their shape when diced and gently reheated.
Cream
Keeps the potatoes moist and coats them as they simmer, giving a rich texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished potatoes.
Chopped parsley
Adds fresh, green aroma and a mild herbal flavour to balance the richness.

The step that matters

Simmering in cream. Cream must simmer gently just until the potatoes are hot and lightly coloured. Boiling hard can split the cream and make the potatoes tough or greasy, so heat should stay moderate.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, cream, 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.

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