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Potato Soup

A simple potato soup made with potatoes, water, milk, butter, salt, egg, and optional allspice.

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

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and dice the potatoes.

Cook

  1. Boil the potatoes in 5 cups of cold water until fully cooked.

  2. Add the milk, butter, salt, and beaten egg to the pot.

  3. If desired, add the allspice for flavor.

  4. Maintain the liquid level by adding more hot water as needed.

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

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

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

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

  3. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  4. Potato + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together298 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down as they cook to give the soup body and a thick, starchy texture.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a softer, richer body to the broth.
Butter
Adds fat, which carries flavor and gives a smoother mouthfeel.
Egg
Its proteins set when heated, adding body and slight thickening to the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten egg. Egg proteins set when they meet hot liquid, so pouring it in quickly can form cooked strands instead of blending smoothly. Adding it gradually while stirring keeps the soup smooth.

Swap the allspice

The recipe marks allspice as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, milk, butter, egg):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

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