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Potato Soup

A hearty soup made with potatoes, leeks or onions, carrot, and a bone or dripping stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Potato Soup

Why it works: Leek and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,310 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. In a saucepan, combine the bones or dripping with the cold water and bring to a boil for 1 hour.

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Parboil and thinly slice the potatoes and leeks or onions, and grate the carrot.

  2. Strain the stock from the bones into the vegetables.

Simmer and serve

  1. Return the mixture to the saucepan, season with pepper and salt, and boil for another hour.

  2. Stir and skim occasionally, breaking the vegetables against the side of the pan to thicken the soup.

  3. 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. Leek + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

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

  4. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down during simmering to thicken the soup body.
Leeks or onions
Add savoury aromatic flavour and sweetness as they soften in the stock.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and colour while contributing body to the soup.
Dripping or bones from cold roast meat
Provides rich, meaty flavour and fat to the stock.

The step that matters

Breaking the vegetables against the side of the pan. Starch from potatoes is released as they break apart, which thickens the soup. Skimming keeps the broth clear and free of fat and foam.

Swap the leek

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Leekthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, carrot, pepper, meat. 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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