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Sour Cream Soup

A potato soup thickened with flour and egg yolk, finished with sour cream and seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sour Cream Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and dice the potatoes.

  2. Cover them with water and cook thoroughly.

  3. Sprinkle a little salt into the flour.

  4. Stir in the egg yolk to make the noodles.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the noodles to the potatoes.

  2. Let them cook for 1 minute.

  3. Pour in the sour cream, ensuring it is all cream for a smooth texture.

  4. Let the soup boil briefly.

  5. Season with salt and pepper before serving.

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

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

  2. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide starch and body, thickening the broth and making it hearty.
Flour
Binds with the egg yolk to form the noodle dough that holds its shape in the soup.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the flour into tender noodles.
Sour cream
Adds fat and tangy acidity, giving the soup its creamy texture and sharp flavour.

The step that matters

Pouring in the sour cream. Sour cream can curdle or separate if it boils hard or overheats. Adding it as directed, and letting the soup only boil briefly, keeps the texture smooth.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour, cream, pepper):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, cream, 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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