Skip to main content
Main

Cream of Potato Soup

A creamy potato soup made with mashed potatoes, milk, cream, egg yolk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Cream of Potato Soup

Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream of Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Cook the potatoes until soft, then drain and mash them.

  2. Add the heated milk and cream to the mashed potatoes.

  3. Strain the mixture.

Thicken and serve

  1. Combine the strained mixture with the beaten egg yolk.

  2. Add seasoning.

  3. Cook in a double boiler until the egg thickens, stirring constantly.

  4. Serve immediately.

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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potato
Provides the body and starch that give the soup its thick, creamy base.
Milk
Adds liquid and dairy richness, forming the soup's main base with the potato.
Egg yolk
Thickens the soup as it heats, through egg proteins setting gently in the warm liquid.
Cream
Adds fat for a richer, smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Cook in a double boiler until the egg thickens, stirring constantly. Egg yolk proteins set at moderate heat, so gentle, constant stirring over indirect heat thickens the soup smoothly. Overheating or leaving it unstirred can scramble the yolk and make the soup grainy.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Dillfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

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

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipes