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French Potatoes

A baked dish of sliced potatoes and onions flavored with pork drippings, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

French Potatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Peel the potatoes.

  2. Slice the potatoes into ½ inch thick slices.

  3. Place the sliced potatoes in a colander to drain.

  4. Peel the onions.

  5. Slice the onions.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a pudding dish, layer the potatoes and onions.

  2. Pour enough water over them to cover the bottom of the dish.

  3. Add the pork drippings.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until well done.

  6. Brown on the top.

Serve

  1. Serve hot.

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. Potato + porktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  4. Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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
Form the bulk of the dish, becoming soft and tender as they bake.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma that deepen as they cook beneath the potatoes.
Pork drippings
Add fat that carries flavour and helps the top brown.

The step that matters

Bake until well done, then brown the top. Potatoes need enough time at oven heat to become fully tender through the slices. Browning the top depends on the surface being dry and hot, so the fat can caramelise the starch and sugars there.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, pork, 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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