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Cream of Potato Soup

A soup made from potatoes, stock, butter, flour, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Cream of Potato Soup

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 ↓

Cream of Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Boil the sliced potatoes in the soup stock for 10 minutes.

  2. Add the seasonings and butter.

  3. Make the flour into a smooth paste and add it to the soup.

  4. Cook for a few more minutes.

Pack and sterilize

  1. Pack into jars, seal, and sterilize in a boiler for 1½ hours.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  4. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down during boiling to give the soup body and a creamy, thick texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel, and carries flavor.
Flour
Its starch thickens the soup as it heats, giving it a smooth, body-rich consistency.
Soup stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavor and cooks the potatoes.

The step that matters

Make the flour into a smooth paste before adding it to the soup. Dry flour added straight to hot liquid clumps, because the outer layer of each granule hydrates and seals off the inside. Mixing the flour with a little cool liquid first separates the granules so they disperse evenly and thicken the soup without lumps.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, 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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