Skip to main content
Main

Potato Soup, Geneva Style

A creamy potato soup with green peas, haricot beans, asparagus tips, and lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Beans and asparagus match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 292 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Soup, Geneva Style

Ingredients

Directions

Make the potato base

  1. Chop the potatoes finely and boil them in veal broth until fully cooked.

  2. Pass the potatoes and broth through a fine sieve.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil, remove any scum, and set aside.

Finish and serve

  1. In a separate pot, boil a handful of green peas, young haricot beans, asparagus tips, and 2 shredded lettuces in salted water until tender.

  2. Combine the cooked vegetables with the potato mixture 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.

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. Beans + asparagustop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together292 recipes

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

  2. Beans + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together500 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Asparagus + lettucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together313 recipes

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

  4. Peas + asparagustop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together808 recipes

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

  5. Potato + asparagustop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together217 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

Potatoes
Break down into a thick, starchy body that gives the soup its texture.
Veal broth
Supplies the liquid and savory flavor base the potatoes cook and blend into.
Green peas
Add sweetness and a fresh, vegetal flavor to the finished soup.
Asparagus tips
Contribute a delicate green flavor and tender texture to the soup.

The step that matters

Passing the potatoes and broth through a fine sieve. Sieving breaks the cooked potato fully into small particles, which gives the soup a smooth, even body. Leftover lumps or skins would make the texture grainy.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, peas, beans, asparagus, lettuce):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, peas, beans, asparagus, lettuce. 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.

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesGreen PeasGreen Peas229 recipesAsparagus SoupAsparagus Soup179 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipes