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German Potato Soup

A hearty soup of boiled potatoes, browned fat meat, onions, sour cream, egg, vinegar, and salt.

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

German Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Peel and dice the potatoes.

  2. Boil the diced potatoes in 1 quart of water until soft.

Fry the meat and onions

  1. Cut the fat meat into tiny pieces.

  2. Fry the meat until browned.

  3. If the meat is very fatty, pour off some drippings.

  4. Slice the onions.

  5. Fry the onions with the meat until soft and brown.

  6. Add the onions and meat to the potatoes.

Finish and serve

  1. In a bowl, mix the sour cream with the beaten egg.

  2. Pour the sour cream and egg mixture into the pot with the potatoes, meat, and onions.

  3. Stir well.

  4. Add vinegar to achieve a sour taste.

  5. Adjust salt if necessary.

  6. Bring the soup to a boil.

  7. Serve hot immediately.

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

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

  2. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Potato + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the soup and thicken it as they break down while boiling.
Sour cream
Adds richness and a creamy body, and its tang complements the vinegar.
Egg
Helps bind the sour cream mixture so it stays smooth and enriches the broth.
Fat meat
Supplies fat and savory flavor, and browning it builds depth in the soup.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften and brown in the rendered fat.

The step that matters

Adding the sour cream and egg mixture. Once the egg is beaten into cold sour cream and poured into near-boiling soup, it can curdle or scramble. Stir the mixture in gradually, off the boil if possible, to keep the soup smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, meat, cream, egg, vinegar):

  1. Mustardfits about as well
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, meat, cream, egg, vinegar. 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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