Why it works: Potato and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,456 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Fried Potatoes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Slice cold boiled potatoes into ¼ inch thick slices.
Fry and serve
Heat a mixture of boiling lard and butter.
Add the potato slices and stir until they turn light yellow.
Place the potatoes in a sieve over the fire for a moment.
Sprinkle with coarse sea salt.
Serve in a very hot dish.
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 + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Cold boiled potatoes
- Provide the starchy base that fries into a crisp, golden exterior.
- Lard
- Conducts heat well and adds rich flavour to the frying fat.
- Butter
- Adds milk solids that brown and contribute a nutty, buttery aroma.
The step that matters
Stirring the potato slices until light yellow. Potatoes that are overcrowded or stirred too early stick and steam instead of frying. Keeping the fat very hot and moving the slices gently helps them colour evenly without breaking apart.
“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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