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Potato Soup

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Potato Soup

Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pour the required amount of water into a saucepan.

  2. Peel and cut the potatoes into pieces.

  3. Heat warm fat in a pan and add the potatoes, stirring gently without browning.

  4. Transfer the potatoes to the boiling water and cook until they break down.

  5. Mash the potatoes as they soften.

  6. Add the chopped carrot, turnip, and onion.

  7. If using, add the ham bone or bacon rind and boil together.

  8. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and a pinch of nutmeg.

  9. Pass the soup through a sieve 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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, carrot, turnip, onion, ham, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, carrot, turnip, onion, ham, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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