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Potato Soup

A hearty soup of parboiled potatoes, tomatoes, onions, celery, herbs, and butter, served over diced fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Parboil the potatoes.

  2. Slice the parboiled potatoes.

  3. Put the sliced potatoes into a soup pot with the tomatoes, minced onions, chopped celery, and chopped herbs.

  4. Pour in 3 quarts of water.

Make the soup

  1. Stew for 1 hour, or until the vegetables can be easily rubbed through a colander.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Return the strained mixture to the pot.

  4. Add the sugar, salt, and pepper.

  5. Bring to a boil and skim off any foam.

  6. Stir in the butter.

  7. Simmer, covered, for 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve the soup over diced fried bread in a tureen.

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. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down during stewing to thicken the soup and give it a smooth body.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Tomatoes
Provide acidity and body, balancing the starchy potatoes.
Onions
Build savory depth as they soften into the stewed base.

The step that matters

Stir in the butter after straining, off the boil. Butter rolled in flour is added as a thickener and fat; adding it to a vigorously boiling soup can make it separate or turn greasy, so it is stirred in gently before the final simmer.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, tomato, celery, butter, flour, sugar, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, tomato, celery, butter, flour, sugar, 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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