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Potato Soup

A hearty soup made with onions, drippings, flour, water, potatoes, oatmeal, butter, salt, and pepper.

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

Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Slice onions and fry them brown with the drippings.

  2. Add flour and brown it.

  3. Stir in boiling water and bring to a boil.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. Add potatoes and boil until tender.

Thicken the soup

  1. Mix oatmeal with cold water until smooth.

  2. Stir the mixture into the soup.

  3. Boil for 15 minutes, stirring often to prevent burning.

  4. Mix butter and flour off the fire.

  5. Stir the mixture into the soup.

Finish and serve

  1. Pass the soup through a sieve.

  2. Serve hot with bread.

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

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

  2. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Frying them brown builds sweetness and savory depth in the soup.
Drippings
Fat for frying the onions, carrying flavor and helping them brown.
Flour
Browning it adds color and nutty flavor, and it helps thicken the soup.
Potatoes
Boiled until tender, they soften and add body to the soup.
Oatmeal
Stirred in as a smooth cold mixture, it thickens the soup and adds body.
Butter
Mixed with flour and stirred in at the end, it adds richness.

The step that matters

Stirring during the 15-minute boil. Once starch-thickened soup sits on the heat, it settles and sticks to the bottom of the pot, where it can scorch. Frequent stirring keeps the mixture moving, prevents burnt flavor, and keeps the texture smooth.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, pepper, potato, 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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