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German Potato Soup

A hearty soup of diced potatoes, fatty meat, onions, sour cream, and egg, seasoned with vinegar and salt.

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

German Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup

  1. Boil the diced potatoes in 1 quart of water until soft.

  2. Fry the fat meat in a pan. If the meat is very fatty, pour off some drippings.

  3. Add the sliced onions to the meat and fry until soft and brown.

  4. Pour the meat and onions into the pot with the potatoes.

Finish and serve

  1. Mix the sour cream with the beaten egg and pour it into the pot.

  2. Stir well and add vinegar to achieve a sour taste.

  3. Adjust salt if necessary.

  4. Bring the soup to a good boil.

  5. Serve hot.

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. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Potato + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Soften when boiled and thicken the soup as they break down.
Fat meat
Renders fat that carries flavor through the soup and browns for savor.
Onions
Browning in the fat builds sweetness and savory depth.
Sour cream
Adds richness and a creamy body to the soup.
Egg
Thickens the sour cream mixture and gives the soup a silkier body when heated.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the soup its sour taste.

The step that matters

Adding the sour cream and egg. Egg proteins can curdle or scramble if the mixture boils hard after it goes in. Stirring the sour cream and egg well and bringing the soup to a boil only after they are combined helps keep the body smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, meat, cream, egg, vinegar):

  1. Mustardfits about as well
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, meat, cream, egg, vinegar. 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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