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Cream Potato Soup

A creamy soup made with milk, potatoes, celery, onion, butter, and heavy cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Cream 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 ↓

Cream Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Combine the milk, celery, and onion in a pot.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Boil the potatoes for 30 minutes.

  2. Drain the potatoes.

  3. Mash the potatoes finely.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the mashed potatoes to the milk mixture.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt.

  3. Whip the heavy cream.

  4. Fold the whipped cream into the soup 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. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 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. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + creamtop 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries the other flavors.
Potatoes
Their starch thickens the milk and gives the soup a smooth, body-rich texture.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel, and its whipped air lightens the finished soup.
Onion
Adds savory aromatic flavor to the milk as it simmers.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped cream just before serving. Whipped cream is held up by trapped air and fat. Heat and long stirring cause it to deflate or separate, so it should be folded in gently and served right away.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Celerythe original
  4. Thymefits about as well

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