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Potato Soup

A creamy potato soup made with milk, butter, flour, and parsley.

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

Why it works: Parsley and celery 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

Prepare the base

  1. Cook the potatoes until soft.

  2. Drain the potatoes.

  3. Heat the milk and onion in a double boiler.

  4. Mash the potatoes with a wire potato masher.

  5. Add the hot liquid to the mashed potatoes.

  6. Strain the mixture.

Finish the soup

  1. Return the strained mixture to the boiler.

  2. Make a white sauce using the potato mixture as the liquid.

  3. Cook the sauce for 5 minutes.

  4. 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. Parsley + celerytop 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 + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down into a thick, starchy body that gives the soup its substance.
Milk
Forms the liquid base and adds creaminess and mild sweetness.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the soup.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a white sauce as it cooks with the starch.

The step that matters

Cook the sauce for 5 minutes. Flour must be heated long enough to cook out its raw, pasty taste and to thicken fully. Stirring keeps it smooth and prevents lumps forming on the bottom of the boiler.

Swap the white pepper

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

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

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