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Cream of Potato Soup

A creamy soup made with milk, water, mashed potatoes, onion, bay leaf, butter, flour, salt, pepper, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Cream of Potato Soup

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream of Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Heat the milk and water with the onion and bay leaf until just scalding.

  2. Remove the onion and bay leaf, then add the mashed potatoes and stir until smooth.

  3. Mix the flour and butter together, then add to the soup and cook until it thickens slightly.

Finish and serve

  1. Season with salt and pepper, and garnish with finely chopped parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base of the soup and adds richness.
Mashed potatoes
Give the soup body and a thick, smooth texture as they blend into the liquid.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it cooks with the butter, giving it body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and carries flour to thicken the soup smoothly.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and butter mixture. Flour added directly to hot liquid can clump. Mixing it with butter first coats the particles so it disperses evenly, and cooking it briefly thickens the soup without a raw starch taste.

Swap the onion

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

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

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