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Potato Soup

A creamy soup made with potatoes, milk, butter, flour, and seasonings.

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 the vegetables

  1. Wash and peel the potatoes, then soak them in cold water for 30 minutes.

  2. Boil the potatoes until very soft.

  3. In a double boiler, cook the onion and celery with the milk.

  4. Drain the water from the potatoes and mash them.

Make the soup

  1. Add the boiling milk and seasonings to the mashed potatoes.

  2. Strain the mixture and bring it back to a boil.

  3. In a small saucepan, melt the butter until bubbling, then add the flour and mix well.

  4. Stir the flour mixture into the boiling soup and let it boil for 5 minutes.

  5. If the soup is too thick, add more hot milk.

Serve

  1. Serve very hot.

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. Celery + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Celery + oniontop 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
Provide the starchy body that gives the soup its thick, mashed texture.
Flour
Thickens the soup as its starch swells in the hot liquid, giving body.
Milk
Supplies the liquid base and creaminess of the soup.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the flour blend smoothly into the soup.
Celery
Adds a savory, aromatic flavor to the milk base.

The step that matters

Stir the flour mixture into the boiling soup. Flour thickens only when its starch hydrates and swells in hot liquid. If it is added to a soup that is not boiling, or is not mixed in well, it can clump and leave the soup lumpy or unevenly thick.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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