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Potato Soup

A hearty soup made with beef shank, onions, mashed potatoes, and seasoned with pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Potato Soup

Why it works: Onion and potato 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 broth

  1. Boil the shank of beef for two days.

  2. Strain the broth into a crock and let it stand until needed.

  3. Remove the fat that rises to the top before making the soup.

Make the soup

  1. Heat 2 tablespoons of the beef fat in a soup pot and fry the sliced onions until brown.

  2. Add half of the beef stock to the pot.

  3. Stir in the mashed potatoes until the soup reaches the thickness of thick cream.

  4. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 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

Beef shank
Gives the broth its long-simmered meaty flavor and body.
Onions
Browning in fat builds sweet, savory depth in the soup base.
Beef fat
Carries flavor and helps the onions brown in the soup pot.
Potatoes
Their starch thickens the broth into a creamy, smooth texture.

The step that matters

Stir in the mashed potatoes until the soup reaches the thickness of thick cream. Mashed potato starch thickens the soup as it sits and heats. Adding too much or stirring over long heat can make it gluey or pasty, so add gradually and check the consistency.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, potato, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, 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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