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Potato Soup

A creamy potato soup made with milk, onion, celery, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 the potatoes

  1. Wash and peel the potatoes, then soak them in cold water for 30 minutes.

  2. Boil the potatoes until very soft.

Make the soup

  1. Cook the onion and celery with the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Drain the potatoes, mash them, and add the boiling milk and seasoning.

  3. Strain the mixture and bring it to a boil again.

  4. Melt the butter in a small saucepan, add the flour, and mix well.

  5. Stir the flour mixture into the boiling soup and let it boil for 5 minutes.

  6. Serve very hot.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down when mashed to give the soup its body and thick texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base and adds richness and a creamy mouthfeel.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and carries the flour into the soup smoothly.
Flour
Starch that thickens the soup as it boils.
Celery
Adds a fresh, savory aroma to the milk as it cooks.

The step that matters

Adding the flour mixture to the boiling soup. Flour clumps if dropped in raw or added to cool liquid. Blending it with melted butter first and stirring it into boiling soup lets the starch disperse and thicken evenly.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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