Skip to main content
Main

Potato Soup

A creamy potato soup with onions, butter, milk, sago, thyme, bay leaf, parsley, salt, and pepper.

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

Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Peel and wash the potatoes, then boil until cooked.

  2. Slice the onion.

  3. Fry the sliced onion in butter without letting it turn color.

  4. Add a little water or stock to the onion.

  5. Boil until tender.

  6. Rub the potatoes and onion through a wire sieve.

Make the soup

  1. Add the mixture to the boiled milk with the bay leaf.

  2. Return to the fire.

  3. Bring to a boil.

  4. Add the sago.

  5. Add a pinch of thyme.

  6. Add chopped blanched parsley.

  7. Add salt and pepper.

  8. Boil until clear.

Serve

  1. Serve very 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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 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
Provide starch and body, thickening the soup when rubbed through a sieve.
Butter
Fat that softens the onion and carries flavour into the soup.
Milk
Forms the liquid base and adds creaminess and sweetness.
Sago
Starch that thickens the soup and turns it clear as it boils.
Onion
Adds savoury aromatic flavour that deepens as it softens in butter.

The step that matters

Fry the onion without browning. Colouring the onion adds bitter, toasted flavours that clash with the delicate milk base. Gentle frying keeps the taste mild and sweet.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

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

More potato soup recipes

Irish 12Sweet 9Cream 8Creamy 8Swiss 6Scotch 5 See all 473 →

You might also like

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