Name: Potato Soup for Six Persons
Ingredients: two ounces of dripping fat; three quarts of water; four pounds of peeled; four onions; pepper; salt

Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Soup for Six Persons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Peel and chop four onions.
Put the onions into a gallon saucepan with two ounces of dripping fat (or butter or a bit of fat bacon).

Cook the soup

Add about three quarts of water.
Bring the mixture to a boil over the fire for ten minutes.
Throw in four pounds of peeled and sliced potatoes, pepper, and salt.
Stir the soup with a wooden spoon and continue cooking over the fire for about twenty-five minutes, until the potatoes are soft and the soup is ready.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

50Calories

1 gProtein

0 gFat

12 gCarbs

Counts 3 of 5 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 3 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Dripping	not in our table	0
Water	not in our table	0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Charles Elme Francatelli. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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.

Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 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 (in the method): Break down during simmering to thicken the soup and give it body.
Onions: Build a sweet, savoury base of flavour as they soften in the fat.
Dripping fat: Carries flavour from the pan and enriches the soup with richness.

“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.