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Milk Soup

A creamy potato and leek soup thickened with tapioca and enriched with milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and leek work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Milk Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Scrub, peel, and quarter the potatoes.

  2. Trim the green tops from the leeks, wash them well, and chop them.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan, add the potatoes and leeks, and sweat for 5 minutes.

  2. Boil the water in a large saucepan, then add the vegetables and butter, along with the salt and pepper.

  3. Boil until the mixture is mashed, then strain the soup.

  4. Rub the vegetables through a colander, then return the pulp and soup to the saucepan.

  5. Add the milk and bring to a boil.

  6. Gradually sprinkle in the crushed tapioca while stirring continuously.

  7. Boil gently for 15 minutes, then pour into a hot tureen.

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.

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

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Leek + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together965 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down into starch that thickens the soup and gives it body.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour when the vegetables are sweated.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a softer, rounder flavour to the soup.
Crushed tapioca
Thickens the liquid as its starch gelatinises during gentle boiling.
Leeks
Contribute a mild onion-like sweetness and aroma to the base.

The step that matters

Adding the tapioca. Tapioca must be sprinkled in slowly while stirring, or it clumps and forms lumps. Once it is dispersed, gentle boiling lets its starch swell and thicken the soup evenly.

Swap the leek

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Leekthe original

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