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Potato Soup

A simple potato soup with onions, butter, and sweet cream.

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

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Boil the potatoes and onion in water until soft enough to pulp through a colander.

  2. Return the mixture to the pot and add salt, cayenne pepper, and butter.

  3. Boil for an additional 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve in a tureen and stir in sweet cream 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 + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down into a thick, starchy base that gives the soup its body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Sweet cream
Stirred in at the end to add richness and a mild, creamy finish.

The step that matters

Pulping the cooked potatoes and onion. Potatoes must be fully soft before pulping, or the mixture stays lumpy and gluey. Pressing them through a colander while hot yields a smoother texture with less starch released by overworking.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Onionthe original
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

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

More potato soup recipes

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