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Potato Soup with Sour Cream

A creamy potato soup flavored with paprika and finished with sour cream.

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 ↓

Potato Soup with Sour Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and cut the potatoes into squares.

  2. Cook the potatoes in salted water until half done.

Make the base

  1. In a separate pan, heat the lard and add the chopped onion; cook until red.

  2. Stir in the flour and paprika, then dilute with a little water.

Finish and serve

  1. Combine this mixture with the potatoes and cook until the potatoes are soft.

  2. Just before serving, stir in the sour cream.

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. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,827 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Onion and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,827 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the body of the soup and thicken it as their starch softens during cooking.
Flour
Thickens the paprika and onion mixture so it blends smoothly into the soup.
Lard
Fat that carries the flavor of the onion and paprika and helps cook the onion.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma as it softens in the fat.
Paprika
Adds color and a mild, sweet, smoky flavor to the soup.
Sour cream
Adds richness and a tangy finish when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour and paprika, then dilute with a little water. Paprika scorches easily in hot fat, and flour clumps if added to a dry or very hot pan. Adding the water gradually keeps the mixture smooth and prevents lumps in the soup.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, flour, cream. 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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