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Potato Soup

A creamy soup made with boiled potatoes, milk, celery, onion, parsley, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Potato Soup

Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the milk base

  1. Boil milk, celery, onion, and parsley together.

  2. Boil potatoes until tender, then mash them.

Combine and finish

  1. Gradually add the boiling milk to the mashed potatoes and press through a strainer.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and butter.

  3. Do not boil after mixing the potatoes and milk.

  4. Keep warm by placing over boiling water.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the soup and gives it a smooth, creamy body.
Potatoes
Provide starch and bulk, thickening the soup as they are mashed into the milk.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Do not boil after mixing the potatoes and milk. Milk can scorch and separate when boiled again, and continued heat can make the soup grainy or curdled. Keeping it hot but below a boil preserves a smooth texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, potato, celery, parsley, pepper, butter):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, potato, celery, parsley, pepper, butter. 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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