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Potato Soup

A creamy, vegetable-based soup made with potatoes, leek, celery, and sago, finished with cream and served with fried bread croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Potato Soup

Why it works: Leek and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,093 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Chop the potatoes, leek, and celery.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  3. Add the chopped vegetables.

  4. Cook for 10 minutes without browning.

Simmer and finish

  1. Add the milk and water.

  2. Boil for about 30 minutes until soft enough to pass through a fine sieve.

  3. Return the mixture to the heat.

  4. Add more milk if needed.

  5. Sprinkle in the sago.

  6. Simmer until transparent.

  7. Stir in the cream, ensuring it does not boil.

  8. Serve with fried bread croutons.

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. Leek + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Potato + leektop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down when boiled to give the soup its body and thickness.
Butter
Fat that softens the vegetables gently without browning them.
Sago or tapioca
Starch that thickens the soup and turns clear when cooked through.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel at the end.
Milk
Adds body and mild sweetness, softening the texture of the soup.

The step that matters

Stir in the cream without boiling. Cream can curdle or separate when boiled because its proteins and fat become unstable at high heat. Adding it off the boil keeps the soup smooth and rich.

Swap the leek

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

  1. Carrotfits about as well
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Leekthe original
  4. Onionfits about as well

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

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