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Potato Soup

A simple soup made with boiled potatoes, water, salt pork, onions, milk, pepper, sea salt, and butter.

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

Why it works: Onion and potato 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

Make the soup

  1. Boil the water with the salt pork and onions for 30 minutes.

  2. Add the mashed potatoes to the pot.

  3. Stir in milk until the soup is as thick as pea soup.

  4. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, add the butter and strain through a colander.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

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

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

  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

Potatoes
Mashed into the broth, they thicken the soup and give it a creamy body.
Milk
Adds richness and softness, and helps set the soup to the desired thickness.
Butter
Stirred in at the end, it adds fat for a smooth, rounded flavour and mouthfeel.
Salt pork
Simmered in the water, it releases savoury fat and flavour into the broth.
Onions
Simmered in the broth, they add aromatic sweetness and depth of flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the milk. Milk should be stirred in gradually, off the boil if possible, because high heat can make dairy curdle or scorch and leave the soup grainy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, potato, milk, pepper, butter. 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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