Name: Cream Potato Soup
Ingredients: 1 pint sweet cream; two stalks of celery cut up; three pints of milk until it will pass through a sieve; 3 heads of celery; 1 quart of strong soup stock; 12 peeled potatoes until tender; 1 table- spoon butter in porcelain kettle; 1 small cup of rice in three pints of milk until it will pass through a sieve; salt; pepper; white pepper; cayenne

Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

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.

Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Celery + potatotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,047 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Potato + ricetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together851 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes: Mashed, they give the soup its body and thick, creamy texture.
Sweet cream: Adds richness and fat, giving the soup a smooth, velvety mouthfeel.
Butter: Adds fat and flavor to the base before the cream goes in.

Swap the white pepper

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

Parsleyfits better
Nutmegfits better
Cinnamonfits better
White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, celery, milk, potato, butter, rice, 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.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Rice	1 cup cooked (158g) white	206
Potato	1 medium (173g) baked	161
Milk	1 cup (244ml) whole	149
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Cream	1 tbsp (15ml) heavy	51
Celery	1 stalk (40g)	6
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Cayenne	1 tsp (1.8g)	6
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Soup	not in our table	0

Cream Potato Soup