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Potato Soup

A creamy potato soup with salt pork, celery, milk or cream, butter, parsley, bread dice, and optional onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 soup

  1. Boil the potatoes with the salt pork and celery until tender.

  2. Pass the mixture through a colander.

  3. Add milk or cream and butter to achieve a thick cream consistency.

  4. Stir in the chopped parsley.

  5. Let the soup boil for five minutes.

Fry the bread

  1. Fry the bread dice in hot lard until brown.

  2. Drain the fried bread dice.

Serve

  1. Place the fried bread in the bottom of a soup tureen.

  2. Pour the soup over the bread.

Optional onions

  1. If desired, boil the chopped onions with the soup.

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. 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. Potato + porktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 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

Potatoes
Break down into the body and thickness of the soup as they cook and are pressed.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the soup.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer, silkier mouthfeel in the finished soup.
Dry bread
Fried in lard, it becomes crisp and browned, contrasting with the smooth soup.
Lard
Conducts heat to brown the bread dice and adds savory fat.
Onions
Contribute aroma and mild sweetness when cooked in the soup.

The step that matters

Frying the bread dice until brown. The bread must fry in hot lard long enough to brown and crisp, since the Maillard reaction creates flavor and texture. Too little heat leaves it soggy, and too long burns it bitter.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, pork, milk, butter, parsley, bread, onion):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, pork, milk, butter, parsley, bread, onion. 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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