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Potato Soup

A creamy soup made from boiled potatoes, cream, milk, butter, and optional flour, parsley, celery, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Potato Soup

Why it works: Parsley and celery 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

  1. Boil the potatoes until thoroughly done.

  2. Pass the boiled potatoes through a colander.

  3. Return the boiled potatoes to a kettle.

Make the soup

  1. Add the cream, milk, and butter.

  2. If desired, add a little flour to thicken the soup.

  3. Add parsley and celery if you like.

  4. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  5. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

Serve

  1. 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. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 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
Provide the starchy base that gives the soup its body and thickness.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving a smoother, silkier mouthfeel.
Milk
Adds liquid and mild sweetness, diluting the potato into a pourable soup.
Butter
Adds fat for richer flavour and a smoother, rounder texture.
Flour
Thickens the soup by swelling with liquid when heated, if used.

The step that matters

Strain the mixture through a sieve. Straining removes remaining potato fibres and lumps, so the soup turns smooth; skipping it leaves a grainy texture.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, cream, milk, butter, flour, celery, pepper):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

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

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