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Potato Soup

A simple soup made with potatoes, leeks, rice, bread, salt, and pepper.

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

Why it works: Potato and leek work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Potato Soup

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Start the soup

  1. Bring the water to a boil in a large pot.

  2. Add the potatoes, bread, and leeks to the boiling water.

  3. Cover and let it boil briskly for a few minutes.

Simmer and finish

  1. Add the rice, salt, and pepper, then reduce heat and simmer for 1 hour.

  2. Ensure all ingredients are cooked through and their juices are mixed.

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 + leektop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Potato + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together851 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Leek + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together161 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

  5. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down as they cook, thickening the broth and giving it a soft, hearty body.
Rice
Releases starch as it simmers, adding thickness and a creamy texture to the soup.
Bread
Absorbs liquid and dissolves slightly, adding body to the soup.
Leeks
Soften during cooking and contribute a mild, sweet onion-like flavour.

The step that matters

Simmer gently after adding the rice. A hard, rapid boil can break potatoes apart and release too much starch from the rice, leaving the soup cloudy, gluey, or overly thick. A gentle simmer cooks the vegetables and grains evenly while keeping the texture smooth.

Swap the leek

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Leekthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, bread, rice, 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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