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Swiss Soup

A simple soup of potatoes and turnips simmered for hours, finished with butter, salt, pepper, and optional salt pork, bone, veal, ham, or onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,668 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Swiss Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a large pot, bring 5 gallons of water to a boil.

  2. Add the sliced potatoes and turnips.

  3. Boil for 5 hours, adding water as needed, until the mixture has the consistency of pea soup.

  4. Stir in the butter, and season with salt and pepper.

Variation

  1. For variation, add a small piece of salt pork, a bone or bit of veal or ham, and an onion.

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.

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Potato + turniptop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Turnip + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,252 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,358 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down during long boiling to thicken the broth into a creamy, starchy body.
Turnips
Soften during long boiling and add body and a mildly peppery flavor to the broth.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Boiling until the consistency of pea soup. Long boiling breaks down the potato and turnip starch so the liquid thickens. Too little boiling leaves it thin, while adding water too slowly can scorch the bottom of the pot.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, egg, butter, pepper, pork. 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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