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Potato Soup

A creamy soup made with mashed potatoes, milk, corn starch, butter, salt, and chopped hard‑boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Potato Soup

Why it works: Potato and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 938 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, combine the mashed potatoes and milk.

  2. Dissolve the corn starch in a little milk and stir it into the pot.

  3. Add butter and salt to taste.

  4. Stir in the chopped hard boiled eggs.

  5. Heat gently until warmed through.

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. Potato + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  4. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mashed potatoes
Provides body and thickness, giving the soup a creamy base.
Milk
Forms the liquid base and adds richness and softness to the soup.
Corn starch
Thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the soup a smoother body.
Hard boiled eggs
Adds protein-rich bulk and a soft, tender texture to the soup.

The step that matters

Stir the corn starch in before heating. Corn starch must be fully dissolved in cold or cool liquid before it goes into the pot, otherwise it clumps. Once heated, its starch granules swell and thicken the soup evenly.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, corn, butter, egg):

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits less well
  4. Sweet potatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, corn, butter, egg. 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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Irish 12Sweet 9Cream 8Creamy 8Swiss 6Scotch 5 See all 473 →

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