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Potato Soup

A soup made with potatoes, rice, butter, flour, and sweet peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Potato Soup

Why it works: Potato and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 851 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, bring 1 quart of water to a boil.

  2. Add 6 chopped potatoes and 1 cup of rice.

  3. Stir in ½ cup of butter and 1 tablespoon of flour, mixing well.

  4. Cook for 1 hour, then add 1 cup of sweet peas just before serving.

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 + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together851 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Potato + peastop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,016 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Rice + peastop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,434 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Their starch breaks down as they cook, thickening the soup and giving it a creamy body.
Rice
Its starch releases during cooking, adding thickness and body to the soup.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Flour
Its starch thickens the liquid, giving the soup more body.

The step that matters

Stirring in the butter and flour. Flour added to hot liquid can form lumps if not fully stirred in, because its starch swells unevenly when poorly dispersed. Mixing well spreads the starch evenly so the soup thickens smoothly.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Milletfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, rice, butter, flour. 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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