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Potato Soup with Egg and Bread Balls

A potato soup containing egg and bread crumb balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Soup with Egg and Bread Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and dice the potatoes.

  2. Boil the potatoes in water until tender.

Make the bread balls

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the bread crumbs.

  2. Form the mixture into small balls.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the bread balls to the soup and cook until they float.

  2. Season with salt and pepper before serving.

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. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Potato + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together434 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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 to thicken the soup and give it body.
Eggs
Bind the bread crumbs together and set when cooked, holding the balls together.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture from the egg and form a soft, tender dumpling texture.

The step that matters

Cooking the bread balls until they float. Adding the balls to a soup that is not simmering can leave them dense or unevenly cooked. The egg needs to set fully in the hot liquid, so keep the soup at a steady simmer while they cook.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, bread, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, bread, pepper. 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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