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Cream of Potato Soup

A creamy soup made with sweet milk, creamed Irish potatoes, onion, celery, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Cream of Potato Soup

Why it works: Onion and potato 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 ↓

Cream of Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Warm the cream sauce and add the creamed potatoes while still warm.

  2. Blend thoroughly, then add the sweet milk, grated onion, and chopped celery.

  3. Just before serving, stir in the beaten egg yolks.

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. Onion + potatotop 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. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Enriches the soup and thickens it slightly for a richer, smoother texture.
Creamed irish potatoes
Provide the body and starchy thickness that makes the soup creamy.
Cream sauce
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety base for the soup.
Sweet milk
Thins the base to a pourable soup while adding creaminess.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolks just before serving. Egg yolks thicken when heated, so if the soup is too hot or boils after adding them, they can scramble and curdle. Adding them last, off the heat or at low heat, keeps the texture smooth.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, onion, potato, egg, cream, sauce. 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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