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Potato Soup

A hearty soup of potatoes, pork, and flour dough pieces, flavored with onion, milk, parsley, and sage.

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

Why it works: Parsley and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,445 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup

  1. Peel and chop the potatoes and onion.

  2. In a pot, combine potatoes, onion, and pork with enough water to cover.

  3. Simmer until the potatoes are tender.

  4. Add milk and parsley, and season with sage and salt.

Make and cook the dumplings

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and salt.

  2. Add the egg and enough water to form a dough.

  3. Roll out the dough and cut into shapes.

  4. Drop the dough pieces into the soup and cook until they float.

Serve

  1. Serve hot.

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. Parsley + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

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

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

  4. Potato + porktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down as they cook, thickening the soup and giving it body.
Pork
Adds savory richness and fat to the broth as it simmers.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness, softening the soup's flavor.
Flour
Forms the dough's structure, which sets and holds its shape when cooked.
Egg
Binds the dough together and adds structure and richness.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough, helping the dumplings rise and turn light.

The step that matters

Drop the dough pieces into the soup and cook until they float.. Dough cooked in a gently simmering liquid needs enough time to set through the center. Pieces that float are usually cooked; pulling them early leaves them dense and doughy.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, onion, milk, parsley, pork, egg, flour):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, onion, milk, parsley, pork, egg, flour. 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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