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Cream of Potato Soup

A creamy soup made from boiled potatoes, milk, onion, fat, and seasonings.

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

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream of Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Cook potatoes in boiling salted water until soft.

  2. Pass the cooked potatoes through a sieve.

Make the soup

  1. Scald milk with onion.

  2. Remove the onion.

  3. Make a sauce with the hot milk and remaining ingredients.

  4. Combine the sauce with the potato pulp.

  5. Add chopped parsley just 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.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down into a smooth pulp that gives the soup its body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base and, with the sauce, makes the soup creamy.
Cornstarch
Thickens the hot milk into a sauce that gives the soup more body.
Fat
Carries flavour and adds richness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Make the sauce with the hot milk. Cornstarch must be mixed well and heated in the milk so its starch swells and thickens. If it is added to cold liquid or left unstirred, it clumps and the soup turns out lumpy or thin.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, milk, parsley, 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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