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Potato Soup

A hearty soup of potatoes, shallots, celery, herbs, bacon, and milk, thickened with cornflour.

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. Combine the meat liquor and bones of the fowl or rabbit with a little salt in a clean pan.

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

Make the soup

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

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

  3. Add the potatoes, cornflour, and milk; stir until smooth and cook until heated through.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Shallot + celerytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together459 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down into the body of the soup, giving it thickness and a smooth texture.
Cornflour
Thickens the liquid as it heats, so the soup becomes smooth and body-rich.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softness to the soup's flavour and texture.
Shallots
Build a mild, sweet onion-like base flavour when sweated gently.
Egg
Listed in the ingredients but not used in any step, so its role is not stated.

The step that matters

Sweating the vegetables without browning. Browning gives bitter, toasted flavours that clash with a clean, delicate soup. Gentle heat softens the shallots and celery and draws out their sweetness while keeping the broth pale.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, celery, egg, milk, pepper, rabbit):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, celery, egg, milk, pepper, rabbit. 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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