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A thickened potato and tomato soup flavored with sugar, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Dinner Dishes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Parboil the sliced potatoes in enough hot water to cover them for 15 minutes.

  2. Drain and discard the water.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, combine the potatoes, tomatoes, onion, celery, parsley, and 3 quarts of cold water.

  2. Cook gently for 2 hours.

  3. Rub the mixture through a colander and return the soup to the pot.

  4. Add the sugar and season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  5. Boil once and remove any scum.

  6. Stir in the floured butter until dissolved.

  7. Add the cornstarch.

  8. Stir for 2 minutes over the heat until ready to serve.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  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. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  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
Form the body of the soup, thickening it as they break down when rubbed through.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and fruity flavour that balances the starchy potatoes.
Floured butter
Adds fat and richness, and the flour helps thicken the soup.
Cornstarch
Thickens the soup further when heated, giving it a smoother body.

The step that matters

Stir in the cornstarch and keep the soup over heat. Cornstarch only thickens fully when heated, and it can clump if added without stirring. Stirring while it cooks distributes the starch evenly and lets the granules swell into a smooth body.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, potato, tomato, celery, parsley, pepper, butter):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, potato, tomato, celery, parsley, pepper, butter. 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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