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Potato Soup

A creamy potato soup with parsley, onion, butter, eggs, cream, and fried bread cubes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Potato Soup

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender.

  2. Rub the potatoes through a colander into a pot with the hot milk.

  3. Add chopped parsley, onion, salt, and pepper, and cook for 30 minutes.

  4. Stir in the butter.

  5. Beat the eggs with the cream and quickly stir them into the soup.

Serve

  1. Serve with fried bread cubes.

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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Parsley + oniontop 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 (in the method)
Their starch thickens the milk and gives the soup body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base and gives the soup a creamy texture.
Eggs
Enrich and thicken the soup when gently heated in it.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Cream
Adds richness and a fuller, smoother texture.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and flavor to the soup base.

The step that matters

Stirring in the eggs and cream. Eggs thicken gently when heated but scramble at high heat. Beating them with cream first and stirring quickly spreads them through the hot soup so they blend smoothly instead of setting in lumps.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, parsley, pepper, butter, egg, cream, bread):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, parsley, pepper, butter, egg, cream, bread. 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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