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Potato Soup

A creamy soup made with boiled potatoes, cream, milk, butter, egg, flour, and optional celery, parsley, and onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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

Prepare

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender, then pass them through a colander.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, combine the potatoes, cream, hot milk, and butter.

  2. Beat the egg lightly, then mix in the flour and a little cold milk to thin it.

  3. Add the egg mixture to the pot and stir well.

  4. If desired, add celery, parsley, and onion.

  5. Strain the soup through a sieve and serve hot.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Cooked and mashed, they form the body and thick, smooth texture of the soup.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the soup a softer, silkier mouthfeel.
Butter
Contributes fat and flavour, rounding out the richness of the soup.
Egg
Thickens the soup slightly when stirred in, adding body and richness.
Flour
Helps thicken the egg mixture, adding body to the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the egg mixture. Egg thickens when heated, so it should be thinned with cold milk and stirred into the hot soup gently and well. Adding it undiluted or to boiling soup can cause it to curdle or turn grainy.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

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