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Potatoe Soup

A hearty soup made with boiled meat liquor, ham or mutton, potatoes, turnips, onions, celery, herbs, egg yolks, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potatoe Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Combine the liquor from boiled meat with the hock of ham or mutton in a pot.

  2. Season with onions, celery, parsley, and herbs if desired.

  3. Cut the mutton into small pieces.

  4. Add the mutton pieces to 3 quarts of water.

  5. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  6. Skim off any scum.

  7. Season with salt and pepper.

Cook the vegetables

  1. Boil additional potatoes.

  2. Add the potatoes, turnips, onions, celery, and sweet herbs.

  3. Simmer for four hours.

  4. Strain the broth.

  5. Force the vegetables through a sieve using a wooden spoon.

  6. Mash the boiled potatoes to thicken the soup.

Finish and serve

  1. Beat the egg yolks with the cream.

  2. Stir the beaten yolks and cream into the soup.

  3. Warm the soup 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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Parsley + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 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 when mashed to thicken the soup and give it body.
Egg yolks
Enrich the soup and add richness and a smooth, velvety texture.
Cream
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the soup.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and earthy flavor to the broth as it simmers.
Mutton
Releases gelatin and savory flavor into the broth during long simmering.

The step that matters

Stir the beaten yolks and cream into the soup. Egg yolks can curdle if they get too hot. Warm the soup gently and add the yolk mixture slowly, off the boil, so it thickens smoothly rather than scrambling.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, ham, celery, parsley, potato, turnip, pepper):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, ham, celery, parsley, potato, turnip, 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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