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Savory Potato Soup

A broth-based potato soup made with marrow bone, vegetables, mashed potatoes, and thickened with butter, corn starch, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Savory Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Crack the marrow bone and place it in a pot with cold water, sliced carrot, celery, and grated onion.

  2. Cook slowly until the liquid reduces to half.

  3. Let the broth cool.

  4. Remove the fat and bones.

  5. Strain the vegetables back into the soup.

  6. Heat the soup to a boil.

Finish the soup

  1. Gradually stir the soup into the mashed potatoes until smooth.

  2. Combine hot water with baking soda.

  3. Stir in butter mixed with corn starch.

  4. Cook for 3 minutes.

  5. Add to the potato soup.

  6. Stir briskly for 30 seconds.

  7. Serve in a tureen.

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.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Marrow bone
Releases flavour and body into the broth as it simmers slowly.
Mashed potatoes
Thicken the soup and give it a smooth, creamy body.
Corn starch
Thickens the soup when cooked with butter and liquid, giving it a glossy body.
Baking soda
Raises the pH of the soup, which can soften vegetables and change its colour slightly.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Stirring the soup into the mashed potatoes gradually. Adding liquid slowly while stirring lets the potatoes disperse evenly, preventing lumps and producing a smooth texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, celery, potato, parsley, butter, corn):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, potato, parsley, butter, corn. 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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