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Potato Soup

A creamy potato soup made with boiled potatoes, onions, butter, flour, milk, and seasonings.

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 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 the potatoes

  1. Peel the potatoes.

  2. Boil the potatoes in 1 quart of water until tender.

  3. Pass the cooked potatoes through a potato ricer.

  4. Return the riced potatoes to the cooking water.

Make the onion gravy

  1. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a skillet.

  2. Add the sliced onions, salt, pepper, and a little water to the skillet.

  3. Fry the onions until nicely browned.

  4. Stir in 1 tablespoon of flour and enough milk or water to make a gravy.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the onion gravy to the soup.

  2. Let the soup boil.

  3. Serve.

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. Milk + buttertop 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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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
Starch breaks down as they cook and thickens the soup, giving it body.
Onions
Browning them develops sweetness and savoury aroma in the gravy.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the onions brown in the skillet.
Flour
Starch thickens the milk or water into a smooth gravy.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness to the gravy and soup.

The step that matters

Fry the onions until nicely browned. Browning drives Maillard reactions that create deep, savoury flavour. Pale onions leave the gravy tasting flat, while over-darkened onions turn bitter.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, milk, butter, pepper, flour. 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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