Name: Potato Soup
Ingredients: potatoes; butter; flour; celery; onion; milk

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

Peel and boil the potatoes until tender.
In a bowl, mix the butter and flour together until smooth.
Chop the celery and onion, then add them to the milk in a saucepan and heat.
Once the potatoes are cooked, mash them until smooth.
Stir the butter and flour mixture into the heated milk.
Add the mashed potatoes to the milk mixture.
Cook until thickened, then strain through a sieve.
Serve immediately.

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.

Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,047 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,518 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

Swap the celery

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

Garlicfits better
Cinnamonfits better
Thymefits better
Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, flour, onion, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.