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Potatoes, Lyonnaise

Sautéed onions and boiled potatoes cooked in butter, shaped into an omelet-like form.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 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 ↓

Potatoes, Lyonnaise

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the onion and potatoes

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

  2. Sauté the minced onions until golden brown.

  3. Add the cold boiled potatoes and toss gently until heated through.

Brown and serve

  1. Form the mixture into an omelet shape against the side of the pan.

  2. When browned, turn the potatoes onto a hot platter 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. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  3. 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 that carries flavor and helps the potatoes brown in the pan.
Onion
Turns sweet and aromatic as it browns, flavoring the whole dish.
Cold boiled potatoes
Form the main body of the dish and crisp up on the hot pan surface.

The step that matters

Let the potatoes brown undisturbed. Browning depends on direct contact with a hot pan surface. Stirring or flipping too early keeps the potatoes from forming a crust, so they steam and stick instead.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits about as well
  2. Onionthe original
  3. Asparagusfits less well
  4. Leekfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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