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Potato Soup

A creamy soup made from potatoes, milk, butter, flour, and seasonings, finished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 the potatoes

  1. Cook the potatoes in boiling salted water until tender.

  2. Rub the cooked potatoes through a strainer.

Make the soup

  1. Scald the milk with the onion slices.

  2. Remove the onion slices from the milk.

  3. Add the scalded milk to the potatoes.

  4. Melt the butter in a pan.

  5. Add the flour, salt, celery salt, and pepper to the butter.

  6. Stir the mixture until well mixed.

  7. Stir the mixture into the boiling soup.

  8. Cook the soup for 2 minutes.

  9. Strain the soup.

Serve

  1. Sprinkle the soup with chopped parsley.

  2. Serve.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the body of the soup, thickening it as they are mashed smooth.
Milk
Supplies the liquid base and creamy richness of the soup.
Butter
Carries the flour and seasonings and adds richness to the soup.
Flour
Cooked in the butter, it thickens the soup as it mixes in.

The step that matters

Stir the mixture into the boiling soup. Flour mixed with butter can clump if added carelessly to liquid. Stirring it in steadily while the soup boils helps the starch disperse evenly and thicken smoothly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, milk, butter, flour, celery, pepper, 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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