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Lyonnaise Potatoes

Sautéed potatoes with onions and butter, finished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato 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

Prepare

  1. Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped onion and cook for 5 minutes until softened.

Cook the potatoes

  1. Stir in the cold boiled potatoes and mix well with the onion and butter.

  2. Let the potatoes cook until browned underneath, then fold and turn like an omelet.

Serve

  1. Transfer to a hot platter and garnish with parsley.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  5. Butter + oniontop 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

Butter
Adds fat for flavor and helps the potatoes brown in the pan.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it softens in the butter.
Cold boiled potatoes
Form the body of the dish, browning on the surface while staying tender inside.

The step that matters

Letting the potatoes brown underneath before turning. Turning too early breaks up the potato layer and prevents a crisp golden crust from forming. Leaving them undisturbed lets the surface dry and brown, which gives the contrast between crisp exterior and soft interior.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, potato. 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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