Skip to main content
Main

Potato Soup

A hearty soup of salt pork, onions, potatoes, turnip, celery, water, milk, cornstarch, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Potato Soup

Why it works: Turnip and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,418 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Combine salt pork, onions, potatoes, turnip, celery, and water in a pot and boil until tender.

  2. Press the mixture through a colander and return it to the pot.

  3. Bring to a boil.

  4. Add milk, cornstarch mixed with butter, salt, and pepper, then boil for 3 minutes.

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. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down during boiling and pressing to give the soup body and a thick, smooth texture.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness, rounding out the broth.
Cornstarch
Thickens the liquid when boiled, giving the soup a fuller body.
Salt pork
Renders fat and savory flavor into the broth as the vegetables cook.
Onions
Build a sweet, savory base of flavor as they soften in the liquid.

The step that matters

Boil after adding the cornstarch and milk. Cornstarch only thickens fully when it reaches a boil, so the soup must be brought back to a boil and kept there for the full 3 minutes. Boiling milk too hard can scorch it on the pot bottom, so stir often.

Swap the turnip

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, onion, potato, celery, milk, butter, 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 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipes