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Lyonnaise Potatoes

A French-style potato dish with butter, onion, vinegar, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Lyonnaise Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dice the cold boiled potatoes until you have 1 pint and season with salt and pepper.

Cook

  1. Fry the minced onion and butter in a pan until the onion is yellow.

  2. Add the vinegar drop by drop to the pan.

  3. Add the potatoes and stir gently without breaking them until they absorb all the butter.

  4. Stir in the chopped parsley 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 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 and, once fried in butter, develop a crisp golden surface.
Butter
Carries the frying and adds rich flavour while coating the potatoes.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it fries, adding aromatic flavour to the potatoes.
Vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity that brightens the rich butter and onion.

The step that matters

Stir the potatoes gently. Cold diced potatoes are fragile, and vigorous stirring breaks them into mush. Gentle turning keeps the pieces intact so they can take in butter and brown on their faces.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, pepper, butter, vinegar, parsley. 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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