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Potato Soup

A soup of potatoes, onions, and oatmeal thickened with flour, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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. Fry the sliced onions in drippings until brown.

  2. Add flour and brown it.

  3. Pour in boiling water and stir until it boils.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

Cook the soup

  1. Add the potatoes and boil until tender.

  2. Mix oatmeal with cold water until smooth, then stir into the soup.

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

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 + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Browned in drippings, they build a deep, sweet flavour for the soup.
Flour
Browned with the fat, it adds colour and body and helps thicken the soup.
Potatoes
Soften as they boil, giving the soup body and a starchy, creamy texture.
Oatmeal
Its starch thickens the liquid as it cooks, giving the soup a fuller texture.

The step that matters

Stirring while the soup boils. Oatmeal and potato starch settle and scorch on the bottom of the pot, so frequent stirring prevents burning and keeps the texture even.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

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