Skip to main content
Main

Potato Soup

A simple potato soup with leeks, rice, bread, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Potato Soup

Why it works: Potato and leek work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Potato Soup

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Bring the water to a boil in a large pot.

  2. Add the potatoes, bread, and leeks to the boiling water.

  3. Cover and let it come to a rapid boil.

  4. Add the rice, salt, and pepper, then reduce to a slow boil.

  5. Cook for about 1 hour, until all ingredients are tender and flavors are combined.

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 + leektop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

  3. Leek + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together161 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

  5. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down while cooking to thicken the soup and give it body.
Leeks
Soften as they cook, adding a mild onion-like sweetness and aroma.
Rice
Releases starch as it simmers, further thickening the soup.
Bread
Absorbs liquid and dissolves into the broth, adding body and softness.

Swap the leek

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, bread, rice, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Leekthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, bread, rice, 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

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesRice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipes