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Cream of Potato Soup

A creamy soup made from potatoes, milk, onions, butter, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Cream of Potato Soup

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 ↓

Cream of Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup base

  1. Cook the potatoes until tender, then strain them.

  2. Scald the milk with the onion slices, then remove the onion.

  3. Add the milk to the strained potatoes.

Finish the soup

  1. In a separate bowl, cream the butter, flour, pepper, celery salt, salt, parsley, and cayenne.

  2. Add this mixture to the soup and cook for 15 minutes.

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

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  4. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down when strained to give the soup its body and thickness.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that gives the soup its smooth richness.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and carries flavor through the seasoning mixture.
Flour
Thickens the soup by binding with the butter and absorbing liquid as it cooks.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and flour mixture to the soup. Flour mixed into fat must be fully blended before it goes into hot liquid, or it can form lumps. Cooking it through for the stated time lets the starch swell and thicken the soup smoothly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, milk, butter, flour, pepper, celery, parsley. 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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