Name: Cream Soup
Ingredients: 1 quart good stock (chicken or mutton); 1 onion, quartered; 3 potatoes, sliced thin; 1 small piece of mace; 1 pint milk; a little corn flour; a little butter

Why it works: Onion and potato 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 ↓

Cream Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

In a pot, combine the stock, onion, potatoes, and mace.
Boil gently for 1 hour.
Strain out the onion and mace; the potatoes should have dissolved.

Finish

Add the milk, a little corn flour to thicken, and a little butter.
For a vegetarian option, use milk and add a little cream.

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.

Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + corntop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together938 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Chicken + potatotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,756 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).
Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,814 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes: Break down during simmering to give the soup body and a thick, creamy texture.
Corn flour: Thickens the liquid when heated, giving the soup a smoother, more substantial body.
Milk: Adds richness and creaminess, softening the flavour of the stock.
Butter: Adds fat for a rounder mouthfeel and richer flavour.

Swap the mace

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

Garlicfits better
Thymefits better
Turmericfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, potato, milk, corn, flour, 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.