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Potato Soup

A creamy potato soup made with leeks or onions, butter, milk, and tapioca.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Potato Soup

Why it works: Potato and leek work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the water in a saucepan.

  2. Peel and wash the potatoes, then slice the potatoes.

  3. Trim the green tops off the leeks, peel the leeks, wash the leeks, then slice the leeks.

  4. Peel the onions, wash the onions, then slice the onions.

Make the soup

  1. Add the potatoes, leeks or onions, butter, pepper, and salt to the boiling water.

  2. Boil until mashed.

  3. Strain the soup through a colander or sieve into a basin.

  4. Rub the strained soup through with a wooden spoon.

  5. Return the soup to the saucepan.

  6. Add the milk when it boils.

  7. Sprinkle in the tapioca and stir the soup.

  8. Gently boil for 30 minutes until the tapioca is clear.

Serve

  1. Serve the soup hot, with or without toast.

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 + leektop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Leek + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together965 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down when boiled to thicken the soup and give it body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness to the finished soup.
Crushed tapioca
Thickens the soup as it cooks and turns it clear and glossy.

The step that matters

Gently boil the soup for 30 minutes after adding the tapioca. Tapioca starch only thickens fully and turns clear when it is heated long enough to gelatinize. Stirring often and keeping the heat gentle helps prevent scorching on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the leek

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Leekthe original

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