Skip to main content
Main

Milk Soup

A creamy soup of potatoes, leeks, butter, milk, and tapioca.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

  1. Boil 2 quarts of water in a large saucepan.

  2. Wash, scrub, peel, and quarter the potatoes.

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

Make the soup

  1. Add the potatoes and leeks to the boiling water.

  2. Stir in 2 ounces of butter, ¼ ounce of coarse sea salt, and pepper to taste.

  3. Boil until the vegetables are soft and mashable.

  4. Strain the soup through a colander.

  5. Rub the vegetables through the colander with a wooden spoon.

  6. Return the pulp and soup to the saucepan, add 1 pint of milk, and bring to a boil.

  7. Gradually sprinkle in 3 tablespoons of crushed tapioca while stirring continuously.

  8. Let it boil gently for 15 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve the soup in 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 a mashed body that gives the soup its thick, smooth texture.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a rich, mild flavor to the soup.
Tapioca
Thickens the soup as its starch swells when heated in liquid.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.
Leeks
Contribute a mild onion-like aroma and sweetness as they cook.

The step that matters

Adding the tapioca. Tapioca must be sprinkled in gradually while stirring so the granules disperse evenly instead of clumping. Keeping it boiling gently lets the starch swell and thicken the soup fully.

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.

More milk soup recipes

Tomato 14Rice 10Bread 8Oyster 6Almond 5Beef 4 See all 78 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes