Skip to main content
Main

Cream of Potato Soup

A creamy potato soup made with milk, cream or butter, salt, onion juice, pepper, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Cream of 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 ↓

Cream of Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Wash and peel the potatoes.

  2. Cook the potatoes in boiling water until tender.

  3. Drain and mash the potatoes or pass them through a potato ricer.

Make the soup

  1. Add salt, onion juice, and pepper to the mashed potatoes.

  2. Gradually stir in the milk and cream (or butter) while mixing.

  3. Cook the mixture in a double boiler for 20 minutes.

  4. Before serving, stir in the beaten egg yolks.

  5. Serve hot with croutons or crackers.

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 + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the starch and body that thicken the soup as it is mashed.
Milk
Forms the liquid base and gives the soup a smooth, creamy texture.
Cream
Adds fat for richness and a silkier mouthfeel.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup slightly when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten egg yolks before serving. Egg yolks thicken when heated, so if the soup is kept at a boil after adding them, they can curdle and turn grainy. Keep the heat gentle and do not let it boil once the yolks are in.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, milk, cream, pepper, egg. 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