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Potato Soup

A creamy potato soup made with mashed potatoes, butter, flour, cream, pepper, sea salt, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Potato Soup

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil and mash the potatoes until fine.

  2. In a bowl, rub together the butter and flour.

  3. Add the butter and flour mixture to the mashed potatoes.

  4. Beat in the cream until well combined.

  5. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

  6. Add boiling water until the soup reaches your desired consistency.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the body of the soup, providing starch that thickens it as it is mashed.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and a smooth mouthfeel to the soup.
Flour
Works with the butter to thicken the mashed potatoes slightly and smooth the texture.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture, softening the flavour of the potatoes.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and flour mixture. Rubbing flour into butter before adding it helps it disperse evenly. Lumps of raw flour stay gritty and can make the soup taste pasty.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, flour, cream, pepper):

  1. Spinachfits about as well
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, flour, cream, 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.

More potato soup recipes

Irish 12Sweet 9Cream 8Creamy 8Swiss 6Scotch 5 See all 473 →

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