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Potato Soup

A hearty soup of potatoes, onions, celery, and sago, simmered in stock and finished with milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Potato Soup

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

  1. Slice the vegetables and fry them in the dripping without browning.

  2. Add the stock or water and simmer until tender.

  3. Rub the mixture through a sieve and return it to the saucepan.

  4. Add the milk, sprinkle in the sago, and boil until clear.

Season and serve

  1. Season with salt and pepper, and serve with small dice of fried bread.

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

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

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down when simmered and sieved, giving the soup body and a thick texture.
Sago
Starch that thickens the liquid as it boils, leaving the soup clear and smooth.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softness, rounding out the flavour of the vegetable base.
Onion
Frying softens it and builds a savoury, sweet base flavour for the soup.
Celery
Frying adds aromatic depth to the vegetable base of the soup.

The step that matters

Boil the sago until clear. Sago is a starch that thickens only when it is boiled long enough to swell and become translucent. Stopping early leaves the soup thin and cloudy, and boiling too hard or too long can make it gluey.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

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