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Potato Soup

A creamy soup of potatoes, onion, celery, butter, milk, and macaroni.

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

Why it works: Potato and onion 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

Prepare

  1. Wash, peel, and slice the potatoes, then place them in cold water.

  2. Peel and slice the onion, and chop the celery.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the vegetables, and stir over medium heat for a few minutes without browning.

  2. Add the boiling water and a little salt, then cook until the vegetables are soft.

  3. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve, rinse the saucepan, and return the soup to it.

  4. Add enough hot milk to achieve a consistency similar to good cream, let it reboil, and season to taste.

Add the macaroni and serve

  1. While the soup is cooking, boil the macaroni in plenty of salted water until just tender, then drain and cut into 1-inch lengths.

  2. Add the macaroni to the soup just before serving.

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 + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down during cooking to thicken the soup and give it a smooth body.
Butter or dripping
Fat that softens the onion and celery and carries their flavour into the soup.
Milk
Adds richness and a creamy texture when stirred in at the end.
Spanish onion
Provides savoury sweetness and aroma as it softens in the fat.
Macaroni
Adds bite and substance, staying firm against the smooth soup base.

The step that matters

Stir the vegetables without browning them. Gentle cooking in fat softens the onion and celery and builds sweet, mellow flavour. Browning would add bitter, toasted notes that clash with the delicate soup.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, milk, butter, celery, pepper, nutmeg. 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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