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Potato Soup

A creamy potato soup made with potatoes, onion, salt, pepper, optional salt pork, milk or egg, and finished with beef fat, flour, and celery leaves.

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

Why it works: Pork and beef match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the potatoes, onion, and salt in a little water until very soft.

  2. Mash the mixture until smooth.

  3. Gradually stir in 1 quart of hot water to keep it smooth.

  4. Cook the beef fat and flour together in a separate pan.

  5. Add the mixture to the soup.

  6. Add salt pork, milk, or a beaten egg for a richer flavor.

  7. Stir well.

  8. Garnish with chopped celery leaves if desired.

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. Pork + beeftop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

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

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

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down when boiled and mashed to give the soup its body and thickness.
Beef fat
Carries flavor and adds richness to the soup.
Flour
Cooked with the fat to form a roux that thickens the soup.
Milk
Optional addition that makes the soup creamier and richer.

The step that matters

Cook the beef fat and flour together before adding. Cooking the flour in fat until it loses its raw taste prevents a pasty flavor and helps it blend smoothly, so the roux thickens the soup evenly without lumps.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, onion, pepper, pork, milk, beef, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, onion, pepper, pork, milk, beef, flour. 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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