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Potato Soup

A hearty soup made with beef shank, onions, beef stock, mashed potatoes, and seasoned with pepper and coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Potato Soup

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 ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Boil the shank of beef for two days, then strain the liquid into a crock and let it sit until needed.

  2. Remove the fat that rises to the top.

Make the soup

  1. In a soup pot, heat 2 tablespoons of the beef fat and fry the sliced onions until brown.

  2. Add half of the beef stock to the pot.

  3. Stir in the mashed potatoes until the mixture is as thick as heavy cream.

  4. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef shank
Slow boiling releases flavour and gelatin into the liquid, giving the stock body.
Onions
Frying until brown adds sweetness and deep savoury flavour through browning.
Beef fat
Frying the onions in it carries flavour and adds richness to the soup.
Beef stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries the other flavours.
Mashed potatoes
Their starch thickens the soup, giving it a creamy, heavy texture.

The step that matters

Stir in the mashed potatoes. Potato starch thickens quickly and can turn gluey if overworked or added too fast. Adding them gradually while stirring gives an even, creamy body.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, pepper. 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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