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Swiss Potato Soup

A thick soup of potatoes and turnips simmered for hours, flavored with butter, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Swiss 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 ↓

Swiss Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine potatoes, turnips, and water in a large pot and bring the mixture to a boil.

  2. Simmer for 5 to 6 hours until the vegetables are completely dissolved and the soup is thick like pea soup.

  3. If the soup thickens too much, add a little boiling water.

  4. Once thick enough, stir in butter, pepper, and salt.

  5. For variation, add a piece of pork or veal and a small onion if desired.

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. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Potato + porktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Potato + turniptop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down during long simmering to thicken the soup and give it body.
Turnips
Dissolve into the broth, adding body and a mild, earthy flavour to the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Simmering for 5 to 6 hours. Long, gentle simmering is what breaks the potatoes and turnips down into a thick, smooth soup. Too fast a boil can scorch the bottom of the pot, so keep the heat low and stir occasionally.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, turnip, butter, pepper, pork):

  1. Leekfits about as well
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, turnip, butter, pepper, pork. 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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