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Potato Soup

A creamy potato soup made with butter, onions, parsley, bay leaf, and milk, finished with pepper, salt, nutmeg, and toasted sippets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Potato Soup

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Wash and scrub the potatoes in lukewarm water until clean. Drain and place in a saucepan.

  2. Barely cover the potatoes with cold water and simmer gently until tender. Pour off the water and let them dry.

Make the soup

  1. In another saucepan, melt the butter and add the minced onions and chopped parsley. Steam until the onions are tender.

  2. Peel the potatoes and rub them through a colander until smooth. Add to the pan with the onions and stir well.

  3. Add the bay leaf and pour in enough boiling water to make a thick batter.

  4. Add boiling milk to achieve a thick cream consistency.

  5. Let the soup boil, then season with pepper, salt, and grated nutmeg.

Serve

  1. Serve with toasted sippets.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  4. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 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
Provide the starchy body that thickens the soup into a smooth purée.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the onion flavour as it softens them.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften gently in butter.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mellows the soup's texture.

The step that matters

Rubbing the potatoes through a colander. Potatoes must be hot and fully cooked, then pressed while still warm, so they form a smooth purée. Cold or undercooked potatoes turn lumpy or gluey when mashed.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, parsley, milk, pepper, nutmeg. 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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