Skip to main content
Main

Cream of Potato Soup

A creamy soup made with potatoes, onion, milk, butter, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Cream of Potato Soup

Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Cream of Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Cook potatoes and onion in boiling salted water until soft, using as little water as possible.

  2. Mash the potatoes and add them to the scalded milk.

Finish and serve

  1. Cream butter with flour, salt, and pepper, then stir this mixture into the boiling soup.

  2. Cook for 2 minutes, sprinkle with parsley, and serve.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  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 into starch that gives the soup its body and thickness.
Flour
Thickens the soup when cooked with butter, giving it a smooth, creamy body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base and adds softness and mild sweetness.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and flour mixture. Stirring the creamed butter and flour into boiling soup lets the starch thicken evenly. Adding it to a cooler liquid or without enough stirring can leave lumps.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes