Skip to main content
Main

Potato Soup

A creamy soup made with milk, celery, onion, bay leaf, mashed potatoes, butter, salt, pepper, and thickened with cornstarch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
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 base

  1. In a double saucepan, combine milk, celery, onion, and bay leaf.

  2. Bring to a boil, then strain the mixture.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in mashed potatoes and butter.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

  3. Thicken with cornstarch as needed 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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Celery + potatotop 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. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base of the soup.
Mashed potatoes
Add body and thickness to the soup as they blend into the milk.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the soup.
Cornstarch
Thickens the liquid when heated, giving the soup a fuller consistency.

The step that matters

Thicken with cornstarch as needed. Cornstarch must be heated to thicken. Add it as a slurry in cold liquid first, then simmer, so it does not clump and the soup thickens smoothly.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Celerythe original

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

More potato soup recipes

Irish 12Sweet 9Cream 8Creamy 8Swiss 6Scotch 5 See all 473 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipes