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Potato Soup

A hearty soup made with potatoes, turnip, onion, celery, and optional sago or other grains, simmered in water and skim milk.

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

Why it works: Turnip and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,418 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine potatoes, turnip, onion, celery, boiling water, dripping, salt, and pepper.

  2. Boil for one hour, stirring occasionally.

  3. Mash the vegetables with a wooden spoon.

  4. Stir in the skim milk and bring to a boil.

  5. Add the sago, semolina, rice, or oatmeal and boil for an additional ten minutes.

  6. Serve hot.

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. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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 and mashed to thicken the soup and give it body.
Sago, semolina, rice, or oatmeal
Starchy grains that thicken the soup further as they cook in the liquid.
Skim milk
Adds creaminess and a mild dairy flavor to the thinned vegetable base.
Onion
Builds savory aromatic flavor as it softens in the boiling liquid.

The step that matters

Mashing the vegetables after the hour of boiling. The vegetables must be fully soft before mashing, otherwise the soup stays lumpy. Starch from the potatoes releases as cells break down, which thickens the soup and gives it a smooth, cohesive texture.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, turnip, celery, pepper, milk, semolina. 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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