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Soup

Potato Soup

A soup made with boiled potatoes, stock, leek, onions, shallots, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Potato Soup

Why it works: Leek and shallot share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 64 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Place boiled potatoes in a saucepan.

  2. Add stock, leek, onions, and shallots.

  3. Pass through a colander into a soup tureen.

Serve

  1. Sprinkle chopped parsley on top and serve.

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 + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together64 recipes

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

  2. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  4. Leek + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  5. Leek + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together759 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down into starch that thickens the soup and gives it body.
Stock
Provides the liquid base and most of the savoury flavour.
Leek
Adds a mild, sweet onion-like aroma that deepens the soup's flavour.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and aroma as they soften into the broth.
Shallots
Add a delicate, mildly sweet onion flavour to the base.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, leek, shallot, parsley):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, leek, shallot, parsley. 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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