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Potato Soup

A creamy soup made with potatoes, celery, onion, stock, milk, butter, and seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Potato Soup

Why it works: Potato and onion 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 ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the potatoes, onion, and celery.

  2. Toss them in a pan with melted butter for 5 minutes.

Cook and strain

  1. Add the stock and simmer for 30 minutes.

  2. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Add warmed milk, season, reheat, and serve with fried croutons.

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

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

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Celery + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Starch that thickens the soup and gives it a smooth, body-rich texture when puréed.
Butter
Fat that softens the vegetables and carries flavour before the stock is added.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and a mellow, creamy texture to the finished soup.
White stock
Liquid that cooks the vegetables and forms the base of the soup.
Onion
Provides aromatic sweetness and savoury depth as it softens in butter.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a fine sieve. Pushing the cooked vegetables through a fine sieve breaks down their cell walls and removes fibres, producing a smooth texture. Skipping or rushing this leaves the soup grainy.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, milk, onion, butter, 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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