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Potato Soup

A simple soup made from potatoes, celery, onion, milk, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Potato Soup

Why it works: Celery and parsley 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. Peel, wash, and cut the potatoes into pieces.

  2. Peel and roughly chop the onion.

  3. Prepare and cut the celery into small pieces.

Make the soup

  1. Cook the vegetables in 8 pints of water until soft.

  2. Rub the mixture through a sieve and return the liquid to the saucepan.

  3. Add the milk, butter, and seasoning, then bring the soup to a boil.

  4. If the soup is too thick, add more water.

  5. Mix in the parsley just 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.

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. Celery + parsleytop 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 + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 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
Break down during cooking to thicken the soup and give it a smooth body.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a mellow richness to the finished soup.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavour and gives the soup a rounder mouthfeel.
Onion
Releases sweetness and aromatic flavour as it softens in the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a sieve. Pressing the cooked vegetables through a sieve breaks down their starch-rich cell walls, which creates the smooth texture. Rushing this leaves the soup grainy or lumpy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, celery, milk, butter, parsley, 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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