Skip to main content
Main

Potato Soup

A creamy soup made from boiled potatoes, milk, onion, celery, butter, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
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 the base

  1. Boil potatoes until soft, then rub them through a sieve.

  2. Slice onion and scald it with milk and celery.

  3. Remove the onion and slowly add the milk to the potatoes.

Finish the soup

  1. Melt 2 tablespoons butter, mix in flour and salt, then stir into the boiling soup.

  2. Boil for one minute, strain the soup, add remaining butter, and sprinkle with parsley 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
Provide the starchy body that thickens the soup into a smooth purée.
Milk
Forms the liquid base and, with the potatoes, gives the soup its creamy texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounded flavour to the finished soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it cooks with the butter, giving it body.

The step that matters

Stirring the butter and flour into the boiling soup. Flour mixed with melted butter must be stirred in smoothly and boiled briefly so its starch swells and thickens the soup evenly without lumps.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

More potato soup recipes

Irish 12Sweet 9Cream 8Creamy 8Swiss 6Scotch 5 See all 473 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipes