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Potato Soup

A creamy soup made with boiled potatoes, milk, onion, celery, butter, and optional whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Potato Soup

Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. In a pot, bring the milk to a boil with the onion and celery.

  2. Peel the potatoes and boil them for 30 minutes.

  3. Drain and mash the potatoes until fine.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the boiling milk and butter to the mashed potatoes, then season with salt and pepper.

  2. Rub the mixture through a strainer and serve immediately.

  3. For an extra touch, add whipped cream when 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.

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

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

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Starch that breaks down and thickens the soup into a smooth body.
Milk
Liquid that makes the soup creamy and loosens the mashed potato.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer mouthfeel and a smoother finish.
Onion
Flavors the milk with aromatic sweetness as it heats.

The step that matters

Mash the potatoes until fine. Overworked or lumpy potatoes leave the soup grainy, while straining removes remaining lumps. Potato starch releases more when cooked and mashed, so the texture depends on how finely the potato is broken down before the hot milk is added.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Garlicfits about as well
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, potato, onion, butter, pepper, cream. 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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