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Potato Soup

A creamy soup made from mashed potatoes, sweet milk, butter, and optional stock, finished with crackers and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Potato Soup

Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender, then mash them.

  2. Strain the mashed potatoes through a colander into a soup kettle.

  3. Add the sweet milk and butter to the kettle.

  4. For added flavor, include a quart of stock.

Season and serve

  1. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  2. Stir in the crushed crackers and chopped parsley or celery.

  3. Bring the soup to a boil and serve hot.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Cook down to a soft, mashed body that gives the soup its thickness.
Sweet milk
Forms the liquid base and adds creaminess and mild sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.
Crackers
Crushed crackers soak up liquid and add body, thickening the soup slightly.

The step that matters

Bring the soup to a boil. Once the milk is added, it can scorch or curdle if overheated. Heat gently and stir often, bringing it up only until hot.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Dillfits less well
  4. Cinnamonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, milk, egg, butter, 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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