Skip to main content
Main

Potato Soup

A creamy potato soup with onion, celery, milk, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
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

Prepare the potato

  1. Wash, peel, and soak the potato in cold water.

  2. Boil the potato in water until very soft, then drain and mash it.

Make the soup

  1. Cook the onion and celery in milk using a double boiler.

  2. Add the mashed potatoes to the milk mixture.

  3. Rub the mixture through a strainer.

  4. Bring the strained mixture to a boil again.

  5. Add butter and flour to bind the soup.

  6. Season with pepper, celery salt, and salt.

  7. Let the soup boil for 5 minutes 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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Potato
Provides starch and body, thickening the soup and giving it a smooth, creamy texture when mashed.
Milk
Forms the liquid base and adds richness and a mild sweetness to the soup.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavour, and helps bind the soup with the flour.
Flour
Thickens the soup by binding with the butter and liquid to give body.

The step that matters

Add butter and flour to bind the soup. Flour must be cooked into the butter and hot liquid so starch swells and thickens evenly; added raw or in clumps, it leaves a pasty, lumpy texture.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, pepper, milk, onion, 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.

More potato soup recipes

Irish 12Sweet 9Cream 8Creamy 8Swiss 6Scotch 5 See all 473 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipes