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Potato Soup

A simple soup made from boiled potatoes, onions, and optional milk or tomato juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

  1. Peel and cut the potatoes into small pieces.

  2. Place the potatoes in a saucepan and cover with water.

  3. Add the sliced onions or tomatoes for flavor.

Cook

  1. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  2. Simmer until the potatoes are soft.

Mash and finish

  1. Mash the potatoes by rubbing through a sieve or beating with a fork.

  2. Add ½ pint of milk and a little nutmeg if desired.

  3. Boil again.

  4. Serve.

  5. If omitting milk, add the juice and pulp of 2-3 tomatoes and leave out the onions.

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. Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  3. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Starch gives the soup its body and thickness once mashed.
Onions
Softened during simmering, they add mild sweetness and savory aroma.
Milk
Adds richness and a creamy texture to the mashed potatoes.
Tomatoes
Contribute acidity and brightness in place of the milk version.

The step that matters

Mashing the potatoes. Potatoes are high in starch. Rubbing them through a sieve or beating gently keeps the texture smooth; overworking freed starch makes the soup gluey, while leftover lumps come from potatoes not cooked fully soft.

Swap the nutmeg

The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, onion, milk, tomato):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, onion, milk, tomato. 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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