Why it works: Potato and chervil work together. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 96 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Potato Chips
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash and peel the potatoes.
Dry and cut them into thin slices.
Fry and serve
Fry the slices in oil until golden brown.
Drain the chips and arrange them on a hot dish, layering them slice upon slice.
Dust with a little cayenne pepper and 1 teaspoon of finely chopped chervil or mint.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Potato + cherviltop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together96 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,305 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Pepper + cherviltop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together867 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Potatoes
- Starch and water form the crisp body of the chips when fried.
- Oil
- Frying in hot oil dries the surface and browns it, giving the chips their crunch.
The step that matters
Dry the slices before frying. Surface water cools the oil and turns the frying into steaming, so the chips absorb more oil and brown unevenly. Drying the slices first keeps the oil hot and the chips crisp.
Swap the chervil
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, pepper):
- Parsleyfits better
- Dillfits better
- Thymefits better
- Chervilthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against potato, pepper. 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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