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Potato Soup

A hearty soup made with potatoes, shallots, celery, herbs, bacon, and milk, flavored with fowl or rabbit stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Potato Soup

Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. In a clean pan, combine the meat liquor and bones of the fowl or rabbit with a little salt.

  2. Boil for a few hours until reduced to about 3 pints, then skim and strain carefully.

Make the soup

  1. In a small clean pan, sweat the bacon, herbs, pepper, celery, and shallots without browning.

  2. Pour about ½ pint of the meat liquor over the mixture and boil for 1 hour.

  3. Add the potatoes, corn flour, and milk, and cook until the potatoes are tender.

  4. Season to taste and 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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Potato + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Potato + shallottop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together272 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down as they cook, giving the soup body and a thick, smooth texture.
Corn flour
Its starch thickens the hot liquid, giving the soup a fuller consistency.
Milk
Adds creaminess and richness, softening the savory flavor of the stock.
Shallots
Sweated gently, they add a mild, sweet aromatic base.
Bacon
Its fat carries savory flavor into the base of the soup.

The step that matters

Sweat the bacon, herbs, pepper, celery, and shallots without browning. Gentle sweating softens the vegetables and releases their aromas into the fat. Browning would give a roasted, bitter flavor that changes the clean taste of the soup.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, shallot, egg, milk, corn, flour, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, shallot, egg, milk, corn, flour, 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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