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Potato Soup

A soup made with mutton, onions, potatoes, and water, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

  1. Cut the mutton into 10-12 pieces.

  2. In a pan, combine mutton, fat, salt, pepper, onions, and a little water.

Make the broth

  1. Cook over heat, stirring until reduced.

  2. Add 5 pints of water, bring to a boil, and skim off any foam.

  3. Add the sliced potatoes when the broth is boiling.

Simmer and serve

  1. Simmer for 2 hours and serve, garnished with parsley or marigold flowers 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Onion + potatotop 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. Pepper + potatotop 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

Lean mutton
Provides the main meat and rich flavour that the broth is built on.
Potatoes
Soften during simmering and thicken the soup as their starch releases into the broth.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth as they cook down into the broth.
Fat
Carries flavour and adds richness and mouthfeel to the soup.

The step that matters

Skim off the foam after boiling. Foam rising from meat contains impurities that can make the broth cloudy and taste scummy, so removing it keeps the soup clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, onion, potato):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, onion, potato. 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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