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Potatoes with Sour Cream

A baked potato dish with butter, onion, eggs, and sour cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Potatoes with Sour Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Peel and slice the potatoes into ½ inch thick slices.

  2. Melt a lump of butter in a stewpan.

  3. Add the potatoes and minced onion to the butter.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. Toss until lightly browned without breaking the slices.

Finish and serve

  1. Beat the yolks of two eggs with 1 cup of sour cream.

  2. Pour the egg mixture over the potatoes and stir over heat until just about to boil.

  3. Transfer the potatoes to a hot dish and serve immediately.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken the sour cream into a rich, smooth sauce as they warm.
Sour cream
Adds tanginess and creaminess, forming the body of the sauce with the egg yolks.
Potatoes
Form the bulk of the dish, browning lightly in butter while holding their shape.
Butter
Fat that carries flavour and helps the potatoes brown in the pan.

The step that matters

Stir the egg and sour cream mixture over heat until just about to boil. Egg yolks thicken as they warm but can curdle or scramble if overheated. Stopping just short of boiling keeps the sauce smooth and creamy.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, pepper, egg, cream. 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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