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Potato Soup

A creamy potato soup made with boiled potatoes, leeks or onions, butter, water, milk, and thickened with semolina, hominy, or sago.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the water in a saucepan.

  2. Cut the vegetables into very small pieces.

  3. If using leeks, cut off the green tops, peel, wash, and slice them.

Make the soup

  1. Add the vegetables to the boiling water with the butter, salt, and pepper.

  2. Simmer gently for about 1 hour until soft.

  3. Rub the soup through a sieve or colander with a wooden spoon.

  4. Pour the soup back into the saucepan.

  5. Add the milk and thickening.

  6. Boil for about 15 minutes, stirring frequently.

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

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Leek + semolinatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down into a soft body that thickens the soup and gives it its main texture.
Leeks or onions
Soften during simmering and add savoury flavour to the soup base.
Butter or clarified dripping
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softness to the finished soup.
Semolina, hominy, or sago
Thickens the soup as it boils, giving it body.

The step that matters

Boil for about 15 minutes, stirring frequently. After the milk is added, the soup can scorch or stick to the bottom of the pan. Frequent stirring keeps the starch evenly suspended and prevents burning while the thickener swells.

Swap the leek

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Leekthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, milk, semolina, 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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