Skip to main content
Main

Potato Soup

A hearty soup made from fowl or rabbit stock, potatoes, shallots, celery, herbs, bacon, egg, milk, and cornflour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Potato Soup

Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine the meat liquid and bones of the fowl or rabbit with a little salt in a clean pan.

  2. Boil for a few hours until reduced to about 3 pints, then skim and strain carefully.

Flavour and thicken

  1. Add the bacon, herbs, pepper, celery, and shallots to a small pan and sweat them without browning.

  2. Pour about ½ pint of the meat liquid over the sautéed vegetables and boil for an hour.

  3. Press the herbs and strain the liquid back into the first pot.

  4. Boil the cornflour and milk in a bowl.

  5. Beat in the cooked egg and mashed potatoes until smooth.

  6. Gradually add the stock to the potato mixture, stirring well.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  3. Potato + shallottop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together272 recipes

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

  4. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  5. Shallot + celerytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together459 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Mashed into the soup to give body and a smooth, thick texture.
Cornflour
Thickens the milk into a smooth base that gives the soup body.
Egg
Enriches the soup and helps bind and thicken it as it is beaten in.
Milk
Adds creaminess and richness to the soup.
Shallots
Build a mild savoury sweetness when sweated gently in the base flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the stock to the potato mixture. Adding hot stock too quickly or without constant stirring can cause lumps and uneven thickening. Gradual addition while stirring keeps the starch and egg smooth and evenly dispersed.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, potato, celery, egg, milk, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, potato, celery, egg, milk, pepper. 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.

More potato soup recipes

Irish 12Sweet 9Cream 8Creamy 8Swiss 6Scotch 5 See all 473 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipes