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Soup

Potato Soup

A simple potato soup made with mashed potatoes, milk, butter, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Potato Soup

Why it works: Potato and onion 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 potatoes

  1. Cook the potatoes until soft.

  2. Drain and mash the potatoes.

Make the soup

  1. Add the heated milk, salt, white pepper, onion juice, and butter.

  2. Strain the mixture to make a white sauce.

Serve

  1. Add the chopped parsley just 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.

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

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

  2. Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potato
Provides the starchy body that gives the soup its thick, mashed texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, carrying the soup into a smooth, pourable sauce.
Butter
Adds fat, which gives the soup a richer mouthfeel and a rounder flavor.
Onion juice
Adds a mild savory aroma and flavor to the white sauce.

The step that matters

Strain the mixture. Straining removes lumps and fibrous bits left after mashing, so the mixture becomes smooth and velvety rather than grainy. Skipping this step leaves the sauce with a coarse texture.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, potato, milk, onion, butter, flour. 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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