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White Soup

A creamy soup made from potatoes, celery, onion, milk or stock, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Simmer the milk (or stock) with potatoes, celery, onion, butter, salt, and pepper in a brass pan for 3 to 4 hours.

  2. If using stock, add milk when vegetables are almost tender; if using all milk, stir continuously.

  3. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve and return to the pan.

  4. Simmer for a few minutes and serve with toasted bread slices.

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.

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

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

  5. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 to give the soup its thick, smooth body.
Milk
Provides the creamy base and mild sweetness that makes the soup rich.
Celery
Adds a light, savoury vegetable aroma to the soup base.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma as it softens during the long simmer.

The step that matters

Stirring when using all milk. Milk can scorch or form a skin on the bottom of the pan during a long simmer, so constant stirring keeps it from catching and burning.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, potato, onion, butter, 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.

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