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    Potatoes · Recipe · Lyon · Reference page

    Pommes de terre à la lyonnaise

    Boiled potatoes, sliced and sautéed in butter, tossed with golden onions and parsley. In French cooking à la lyonnaise means with onions, and Escoffier fixes the onion at a quarter of the weight of the potatoes.

    Pommes de terre à la lyonnaise — editorial illustration
    Servings
    4
    Preparation
    15 min
    Cooking
    45 min
    Total
    1 h
    Difficulty
    Easy

    Equipment

    • Saucepan for boiling the potatoes
    • Two frying pans (one large, about 28 cm)
    Servings4

    Ingredients

    Shopping list

    Method

    1. Boil the potatoes in their skins in salted water until just tender to a knife, 20–25 minutes depending on size. Drain, let them steam dry for a few minutes, then peel and cut into slices about 5 mm thick.

      Why Escoffier starts from potatoes cooked in water and peeled. Cooking them whole in their skins keeps them from absorbing water, so they brown rather than steam in the pan.

      Timer · 22 min22:00

    2. Melt 40 g butter in the large pan over a medium-high heat. Add the potato slices in a single layer if possible and sauté, turning now and then, until golden on both sides, about 12–15 minutes.

      Timer · 14 min14:00

    3. Meanwhile, cook the onions in the other pan with 20 g butter over a medium heat, stirring, until soft and well browned, about 15 minutes.

      Why Onions are cooked separately because they need longer and gentler heat than the potatoes; together, the onions would burn or the potatoes stay pale.

      Timer · 15 min15:00

    4. Add the onions to the potatoes, season with salt and pepper and toss them together over the heat for 2–3 minutes. Serve in a warm dish, scattered with parsley.

      Timer · 3 min3:00

    To drink & serve with

    • Gamay

      Lyon's everyday wine is Beaujolais, from Gamay: a light red that suits these potatoes served with sausage or a steak.

    • Beaujolais

      A Beaujolais or Beaujolais-Villages, lightly chilled.

    • A side dish for roast or grilled meats, sausages and calf's liver; Escoffier also gives liver, tripe and andouillettes à la lyonnaise, all with sautéed onions.

    Substitutions

    • Butter → Half butter, half oil tolerates the heat better; goose fat is also used.
    • Boiled potatoes → Leftover boiled potatoes from the day before brown even better: they are drier and firmer.

    Common mistakes

    • Using floury potatoes: the slices crumble.
    • Stirring constantly: the potatoes cannot form a crust. Turn them only every few minutes.
    • Cooking the onions with the potatoes from the start: they burn before the potatoes are golden.

    Storage & reheating

    Best eaten at once. Leftovers keep 2 days in the fridge and can be reheated in a hot pan.

    Safety

    Allergens: milk (butter). Cool leftovers quickly and refrigerate within 2 hours.

    Allergens

    Milk

    Check labels: stock, bacon and sauces can contain further allergens.

    Dietary

    vegetarian · gluten-free

    What 'lyonnaise' means

    In classic French cooking, à la lyonnaise names a dish cooked with onions, usually sliced and browned in butter. Escoffier's Guide culinaire has many such dishes: a sauce lyonnaise of onions softened in butter, reduced with white wine and vinegar and finished with demi-glace, omelettes, entrecôtes and tournedos, calf's liver, tripe (gras-double), andouillettes and black puddings, all sautéed with onions. The potatoes are the simplest of them.

    Escoffier's recipe fixes the proportions: boiled potatoes, sliced and sautéed in butter, with onion browned separately in butter, in the proportion of one quarter of the potatoes.

    [1]

    Two pans, then one

    The method is a sauté in two stages. Potatoes boiled whole, then peeled and sliced, have a cooked, slightly dry surface that browns quickly in hot butter. Onions need longer and lower heat to soften and caramelise; cooked alongside the potatoes they would scorch. Escoffier sautés the two separately and only then tosses them together for a few minutes, so the onion's sweetness coats the potatoes without turning bitter.

    Choose potatoes that hold their shape. Firm, waxy varieties such as Charlotte or Belle de Fontenay keep neat slices; floury ones break and absorb too much butter.

    [1]

    How it connects

    Place

    • origin Lyon In preparation

    Potato

    Grape variety

    Wine region

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