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Potato Porridge

A creamy potato and onion dish cooked with butter, flour, milk, eggs, and celery essence.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the puree

  1. Fry the potatoes and onions in a little butter until light brown.

  2. Put them into a soup pot with the boiling water and cook gently until soft.

  3. Rub the mixture through a colander to create a smooth puree.

  4. Add the water used for boiling and return to the heat.

  5. When the puree begins to bubble, stir in the buttered flour, pepper, salt, and chopped parsley, and simmer for five minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. In another vessel, heat the milk and pour it over the beaten eggs; cook for one minute.

  2. Pour the egg mixture into a tureen, add the puree, and stir in the celery essence.

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.

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. Onion + celerytop 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

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the puree, giving body and a thick, smooth texture.
Eggs
Set when cooked, adding richness and body to the soup.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour, and the flour coating helps thicken the puree.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softness to the finished porridge.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma and sweetness as it browns in butter.

The step that matters

Pour the egg mixture into the tureen before adding the puree. Eggs scrambled in hot liquid curdle into lumps. Tempering them with hot milk and then mixing them into the hot puree gently cooks them into a smooth, creamy texture.

Swap the celery

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, onion, milk, egg, butter, flour, 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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