Name: Potato Soup
Ingredients: 6 to 8 large potatoes; 3 pints milk and water mixed; 1 carrot; 2 to 3 stalks of celery; 1 onion; a few whole peppers; coarse sea salt to taste; stale bread for serving

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

Slice the potatoes and add them to a pot with the milk and water mixture.
Chop the carrot, celery, and onion, and add them to the pot along with the whole peppers and salt.
Boil for one hour, then strain the soup.

Prepare the bread and serve

Cut stale bread into dice.
Fry the diced bread until crisp.
Serve the soup with the fried 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.

Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,173 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,107 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes: Break down while simmering to give the soup body and a thick, smooth texture.
Milk: Adds richness, creaminess and a soft, mellow flavour to the soup.
Onion: Builds a savoury, aromatic base as it softens in the liquid.
Carrot: Adds gentle sweetness and colour to the soup.
Celery: Contributes savoury, herbal aroma to the soup base.

Swap the onion

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

Capsicumfits better
Tomatofits better
Parsnipfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, milk, carrot, celery, pepper, bread. 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.