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Potato Soup

A creamy potato soup made with milk, butter, flour, onion, celery, and salt.

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

  1. Peel and boil the potatoes for 30 minutes.

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

Make the soup

  1. Mash the boiled potatoes and add them to the milk mixture.

  2. Stir in the butter mixed with flour and add salt to taste.

  3. Rub the soup through a colander.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the starchy base that, once mashed, gives the soup its body.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid that carries the soup's flavor and texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the soup as its starch swells in the hot liquid.
Onion
Adds savory aroma as it softens and flavors the milk.
Celery
Contributes a light, savory aroma to the milk.

The step that matters

Stir in the butter mixed with flour. Flour starch must disperse evenly in the hot liquid before it swells. Mixing it with butter first coats the particles so they spread without clumping, giving a smooth, evenly thickened soup.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Celerythe original

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