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Soup

A simple soup made with onion, butter, diced potato, and bone broth, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onion

  1. Chop the onion finely.

  2. Fry the onion in butter until soft.

Make the soup

  1. Boil the soup liquor with the fried onion.

  2. Place the diced raw potato in a tureen.

  3. Pour the boiling soup over the potato.

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.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Onion
Softens and sweetens as it fries, adding a mild, savoury base flavour to the soup.
Butter
Fat that carries the onion's flavour and helps it soften gently without browning.
Potato
Releases starch as it cooks, which gives the soup body and a slightly thick, creamy texture.
Soup liquor from boiled bones
Forms the liquid base of the soup, providing most of its body and savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling soup over the raw potato. Raw potato needs sustained heat to soften its starch. Pouring boiling liquid over diced pieces in a tureen may cook them only partly, leaving them firm and chalky, so the potato should be checked for tenderness.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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.

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