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Potato Soup

A simple soup of boiled potatoes and onion, strained and mixed with sweet cream and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Make the soup base

  1. Boil the potatoes and onion in 2 quarts of water until soft.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Rub the strained mixture through a sieve.

  4. Bring the strained liquid to a boil.

Finish and serve

  1. In a soup tureen, add 1 cup of sweet cream and salt to taste.

  2. Pour the hot liquid over the cream.

  3. Serve immediately.

  4. Use extract of celery or celery salt for added flavor.

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

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

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Onion + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,827 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Onion and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,827 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down when boiled and rubbed through a sieve, giving the soup its body and thickness.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the hot soup.
Onion
Softens during boiling and adds savory aromatic flavor to the broth.

The step that matters

Pour the hot liquid over the cream. The soup should be hot enough to warm the cream without boiling it, since high heat can cause dairy to curdle or separate. Serve promptly so the texture stays smooth.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, onion, cream):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Celerythe original
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Parsleyfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, onion, 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.

More potato soup recipes

Irish 12Sweet 9Cream 8Creamy 8Swiss 6Scotch 5 See all 473 →

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