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Potato Cream Soup

A creamy soup made with potatoes, stock, milk, flour, onion, ham bone, salt, pepper, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Cream Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Strain the soup stock into a soup pot and bring it to a boil.

  2. Peel and chop the potatoes, then add them to the boiling stock.

Thicken and simmer

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the flour with a little water to create a thickening paste.

  2. Stir the paste into the soup to thicken it to a creamy consistency.

  3. Add the minced onion, ham bone, salt, and pepper.

  4. Simmer until the potatoes are tender.

  5. Remove the ham bone, then stir in the minced parsley before serving.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 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. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  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 simmering to add body and a starchy, creamy texture to the soup.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a creamy consistency when mixed to a paste first.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess to the soup base.
Soup stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavor of the soup.
Minced onion
Adds aromatic savory flavor to the soup.

The step that matters

Stir the flour paste into the soup. Flour clumps if added dry or without being mixed smooth with liquid first. Mixing it into a thin paste and stirring it into hot stock lets the starch disperse and thicken evenly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, potato, flour, ham, pepper, parsley. 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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