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Potato Soup

A soup made from fowl or rabbit stock, potatoes, herbs, and milk.

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

Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. In a clean pan, combine the meat liquor and bones of the fowl or rabbit with a little salt.

  2. Boil for a few hours until reduced to about 3 pints, then skim and strain carefully.

Flavour the stock

  1. In a small pan, sweat the bacon, herbs, pepper, celery, and shallots without browning.

  2. Pour in about ½ pint of the meat liquor and boil for an hour, then press the herbs and strain the liquid into the first lot.

Make the soup

  1. Boil the cornflour and milk together, then beat in the egg.

  2. Mash the previously baked potatoes in a large bowl, then gradually add the milk mixture and stock.

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

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

  2. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  3. Potato + shallottop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together272 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  5. Shallot + celerytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together459 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the bulk and starch that give the soup its body when mashed.
Cornflour
Thickens the milk as its starch swells and sets when boiled.
Egg
Enriches the soup and adds body as its proteins set in the hot liquid.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a soft, smooth texture to the soup.
Shallots
Build a mild, savoury aroma as they soften in the base flavouring.

The step that matters

Beating the egg into the cornflour and milk. Egg proteins set when hot and can curdle or turn grainy if they meet boiling liquid too abruptly. Beating it in off the heat or with care keeps the soup smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, potato, celery, egg, milk, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, potato, celery, egg, milk, 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.

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