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Potato Soup for Lent

A simple potato soup made with onions, butter, milk, potatoes, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 for Lent

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice and fry the onions in butter until browned.

  2. Add the milk to the soup pot.

  3. Peel and boil the potatoes until tender.

Make the soup

  1. Mash the potatoes and gradually mix them into the milk until smooth.

  2. Bring the soup to a boil and season with pepper and 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.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Onions
Browning in butter builds a sweet, savory flavor base for the soup.
Butter
Frying the onions in butter adds richness and helps them brown.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the soup and gives it a creamy body.
Potatoes
Mashed into the milk, they thicken the soup and give it body.

The step that matters

Mix the mashed potatoes into the milk gradually. Adding mashed potato slowly and stirring keeps it from clumping and lets it blend into the milk for a smooth texture.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, 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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