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White Soup

A creamy potato and leek soup thickened with sago.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and leek work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the chopped vegetables and sauté without browning.

  3. Pour in the stock and bring to a boil until the vegetables are tender.

  4. Pass the mixture through a sieve back into the saucepan.

  5. Stir in the milk.

  6. Gradually sprinkle in the sago while stirring well.

  7. Cook until the sago is clear and tender, then serve.

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.

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 + leektop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Leek + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together965 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down when cooked to give the soup body and a thick, smooth texture.
Leeks
Provide a mild, savoury onion-like aroma and flavour base.
Sago
Thickens the soup as its starch swells and turns clear when cooked.
Milk
Adds richness and a creamy, mellow texture to the soup.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour, carrying aroma from the vegetables.

The step that matters

Sprinkling in the sago. Sago added in one lump or without constant stirring can clump and scorch on the base of the pan. Adding it gradually while stirring keeps the starch dispersed so it thickens evenly and cooks through until clear.

Swap the leek

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Leekthe original

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

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