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Potato Soup

A creamy soup made from boiled potatoes, onion, celery, water, butter, pepper, salt, sugar, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

Prepare

  1. Slice the potatoes, onion, and celery.

Cook and strain

  1. Boil in 3 pints of water until tender.

  2. Pass the mixture through a sieve.

Season and serve

  1. Return to the pot, add butter, pepper, salt, and sugar, and boil again.

  2. Just before serving, stir in the cream.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Mealy potatoes
Break down when cooked, giving the soup a thick, smooth body after straining.
Onion
Adds savory depth and aroma as the base flavor of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow texture when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Stirring in the cream just before serving. Cream that boils for long can separate or turn grainy, so adding it at the end keeps the soup smooth and rich.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, onion, butter, pepper, sugar, cream. 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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