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Potato Ribbons

Thin strips of potato fried in beef dripping, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,052 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Potato Ribbons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and scrape the potatoes.

  2. Cut them into thin strips, keeping them as uniform in width as possible.

  3. Place the strips in cold water as you cut them.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat beef dripping in a pan until very hot or boiling.

  2. Fry the potato strips until they are a light brown color.

  3. Sprinkle with salt and pepper before serving.

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 + beeftop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  3. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Starch in the strips becomes crisp on the outside and fluffy inside when fried.
Beef dripping
Fat that conducts heat well and fries the strips evenly, adding savory flavor.

The step that matters

Heat the dripping until very hot before adding the potatoes. Hot fat seals the surface of the strips quickly, so they crisp rather than soak up grease. Cold or lukewarm fat makes the potatoes greasy and pale.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, beef. 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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