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Lyonnaise Potatoes

A sautéed potato dish with butter, onion, and 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

  1. In a skillet, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped onion and sauté until translucent.

  3. Dice the potatoes and add them to the skillet.

  4. Fry the potatoes until golden brown and cooked through.

  5. Stir in parsley and serve.

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

Potatoes
Provide the bulk of the dish; frying browns their surface while the inside cooks through.
Butter
Adds fat for frying and a rich flavour that helps the potatoes brown.
Onion
Softens as it sautés, adding sweetness and aroma to the potatoes.

The step that matters

Fry the potatoes until golden brown and cooked through. Potatoes brown only when their surface is dry and the pan is hot enough; crowding or stirring too often steams them instead. Cooking them through needs enough time over moderate heat so the centre becomes tender before the outside burns.

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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