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Potato Soup

A creamy potato soup served with fried bread croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Potato Soup

Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Boil the potatoes with the salt pork and celery until tender.

  2. Pass the mixture through a colander.

  3. Add milk or cream and butter to achieve a thick cream consistency.

  4. If desired, chop the onions and boil them with the soup.

  5. Stir in the chopped parsley and let it boil for 5 minutes.

Make the croutons

  1. Fry the bread dice in hot lard until brown, then drain.

Serve

  1. Place the fried bread in the bottom of a soup tureen and pour the soup over it.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down when boiled and pureed, giving the soup its body and thick, creamy texture.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture and richness, loosening the puree into a smooth, creamy consistency.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, rounding out the flavor of the creamy soup.
Dry bread
Fried until brown, it becomes crisp and toasty, contrasting with the smooth soup.
Salt pork
Simmered with the potatoes, it adds savory, fatty flavor to the broth.

The step that matters

Frying the bread dice in hot lard until brown. Bread dries and crisps quickly in hot fat, so it can turn dark or burnt before the centre crisps. Watching the colour keeps the croutons crisp rather than bitter and soggy-centred when they meet the hot soup.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, pork, celery, milk, butter, parsley, bread. 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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