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Lyonnaise Potatoes

A sautéed potato dish with onions and butter, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lyonnaise Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Fry the onions in 2 tablespoons of butter until light brown.

  2. Add the chopped potatoes, salt, pepper, and 3 more tablespoons of butter.

  3. Stir with a fork for five minutes.

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 + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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; their starch crisps and browns in the hot fat.
Butter
Conducts heat and adds richness, with milk solids that brown for flavor.
Onion
Softens and caramelizes when fried, adding sweetness and savory aroma.

The step that matters

Frying the onions until light brown. Onions turn sweet and aromatic as their sugars brown gently. If the heat is too high or they darken too far, the butter and onion turn bitter and can scorch the potatoes added next.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, pepper, 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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