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Potato Soup

A simple potato soup made with boiled potatoes, milk, onion, celery, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Potato Soup

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 ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the potatoes until cooked.

  2. In a double kettle, bring the milk to a boil with the chopped onion and celery.

Make the soup

  1. Mash the cooked potatoes thoroughly and mix them with the boiling milk.

  2. Add the butter, salt, black pepper, and red pepper.

  3. Rub the soup through a strainer.

  4. If desired, add a little cream and serve immediately.

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.

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.

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

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

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Starch that thickens the milk into a smooth, body-rich soup when mashed.
Milk
Forms the liquid base and adds creaminess and mild sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma as its flavour infuses the hot milk.

The step that matters

Mashing the potatoes thoroughly. Potato starch thickens the soup as it is broken down. Leaving lumps of cooked potato can make the texture grainy, so the potatoes should be mashed fully before they are mixed into the boiling milk.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, milk, onion, butter, pepper, cream):

  1. Garlicfits about as well
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, milk, onion, butter, pepper, cream. 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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