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Soup

Potato Soup

A creamy soup made with potatoes, leek, celery, milk, water, butter, sago, salt, and pepper.

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

Why it works: Leek and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,093 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the potatoes, leek, and celery.

Cook the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a lined saucepan and add the chopped vegetables.

  2. Cook for about 10 minutes without browning.

  3. Add the milk and water, then bring to a boil.

  4. Cook for about 30 minutes or until the potatoes are soft enough to pass through a fine sieve.

Finish

  1. Return the soup to the heat, adding more milk if needed, and stir in the sago.

  2. Simmer until the sago is transparent.

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. Leek + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down when cooked to give the soup its body and thickness.
Butter
Fat that softens the vegetables gently, adding richness to the soup.
Sago or tapioca
Starch that thickens the soup as it cooks and turns clear when ready.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness to the soup.

The step that matters

Cooking the vegetables without browning. Browning the leek and celery in butter adds roasted flavours that change the clean, mild taste of a potato soup. Gentle heat softens them while keeping the colour pale.

Swap the leek

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Leekthe original

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

More potato soup recipes

Irish 12Sweet 9Cream 8Creamy 8Swiss 6Scotch 5 See all 473 →

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