Name: Potato Soup
Ingredients: 5 or 6 potatoes; small piece of salt pork; milk; butter; dry bread; 2 chopped onions (optional)

Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

Boil the potatoes and the salt pork in water for 30 minutes.
Cut the boiled potatoes into thick slices.
Press the mixture through a colander.
Add milk and butter until the mixture is the consistency of thick cream.

Toast the bread and serve

Cut the dry bread into small dice and toast until crisp.
Place the toasted bread in the bottom of a tureen and pour the soup over it.

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.

Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + porktop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,668 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes: Their starch thickens the soup and gives it a smooth, full body when mashed.
Salt pork: Adds savory fat and salty, meaty flavor to the cooking water and soup.
Milk: Adds moisture and mild sweetness, loosening the purée to a creamy consistency.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel in the finished soup.
Dry bread: Toasted into crisp dice, it adds a crunchy texture contrast to the smooth soup.

The step that matters

Add milk and butter until the mixture is the consistency of thick cream. Potato starch has already thickened the purée, so liquid should be added gradually. Adding too much at once makes the soup thin and watery, and it is hard to correct without adding more potato.