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Potato Soup

A thick soup made with potatoes, onions, sago, milk, and water, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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. Slice the potatoes and onions thinly.

  2. In a saucepan, heat the dripping over gentle heat for 5 to 10 minutes, shaking occasionally to prevent sticking.

Make the soup

  1. Add the water (or liquid from boiled meat or ham) and boil until the vegetables are tender.

  2. Rub the mixture through a wire sieve using a wooden spoon.

  3. Return the mixture to the pan and add pepper, salt, milk, and sago.

  4. Boil for 15 minutes, then serve.

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

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

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

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Milk + oniontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide starch and body, thickening the soup as they cook and break down.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and aroma as they soften in the hot dripping.
Dripping
Carries flavour and keeps the vegetables from sticking while they cook gently.
Milk
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the finished soup.
Sago
Thickens the soup as its starch swells during boiling.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a wire sieve. Pushing the cooked vegetables through the sieve breaks them into a smooth purée; if they are not fully tender, the soup stays grainy and lumpy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, 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.

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