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Paris Potato Soup

A creamy potato soup with onions, butter, nutmeg, sugar, pepper, sea salt, stock, cream, mushrooms, and fried croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Paris Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup

  1. Slice the potatoes and onions and place them in a stewpan with the butter, nutmeg, sugar, pepper, and salt.

  2. Add the mild stock and boil gently over low heat.

  3. Pass the mixture through a tamis.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the cream and mushrooms, and heat until hot.

  2. Serve with fried croutons.

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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down during simmering to thicken the soup and give it body.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook, adding savoury depth to the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour as the vegetables cook gently.
Cream
Adds smoothness and richness to the finished soup when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Passing the mixture through a tamis. Pressing the cooked potatoes and onions through a fine sieve breaks them into a smooth purée. Skipping or rushing this leaves lumps and an uneven texture.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

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