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Potato Soup

A soup made with sliced potatoes, water, sweet milk, thickened with flour or cornstarch, and finished with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Potato Soup

Why it works: Potato and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 851 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine sliced potatoes and water in a pot.

  2. Cook until the potatoes are tender.

  3. Add sweet milk and thicken with flour or cornstarch.

  4. Stir in butter and mix well.

  5. Optionally add a little rice or macaroni.

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. Potato + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together851 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Form the body of the soup and, once cooked soft, help give it a thick, creamy base.
Sweet milk
Adds richness and creaminess to the broth.
Flour or cornstarch
Thickens the liquid so the soup becomes creamy rather than watery.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Thickening after adding the milk. Flour or cornstarch must be fully mixed in and heated so the starch swells and thickens the liquid; added lumpy or undissolved, it stays grainy and the soup can scorch on the bottom if left unstirred.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, butter, egg, rice):

  1. Asparagusfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, butter, egg, rice. 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 →

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