Name: Potato Soup
Ingredients: 2 or more bones (leg of mutton, etc.); 1 onion; 1 carrot; 1 turnip; Pan of potatoes; Salt and pepper to taste

Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

Boil the potatoes in a pot until tender.
In a separate pot, boil the bones, onion, carrot, and turnip until tender, then strain the stock.

Combine and serve

Mash the boiled potatoes and add them to the strained stock.
Boil the mixture again for 5 to 10 minutes, then strain.
Season with salt and pepper, and simmer for a few minutes before serving.

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.

Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,002 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,107 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,585 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bones: Release gelatin and savory flavor into the stock as they simmer.
Potatoes: Break down when mashed, releasing starch that gives the soup body and thickness.
Onion: Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the stock as it cooks.
Carrot: Contributes mild sweetness and color to the stock.
Turnip: Adds earthy sweetness and background flavor to the stock.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, carrot, turnip, potato, pepper):

Leekfits better
Parsnipfits better
Spinachfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, carrot, turnip, potato, 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.