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Potato Soup

A creamy soup made from boiled potatoes, onion, celery, milk, butter, flour, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 potatoes

  1. Cook the potatoes in salted water with the onion until soft.

  2. Mash the potatoes smooth.

  3. Rub the mashed potatoes through a fine sieve.

Make the soup

  1. Scald the milk with the celery.

  2. Remove the celery.

  3. Cream together the butter and flour.

  4. Add the butter-flour mixture to the milk.

  5. Add the prepared potatoes to the milk.

  6. Season with salt and pepper.

  7. Let the soup come to a boil.

  8. Serve at once.

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. Pepper + celerytop 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 into a smooth puree that gives the soup its body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base and adds creamy richness to the soup.
Butter and flour
Flour creamed with butter forms a roux that thickens the soup.

The step that matters

Add the butter-flour mixture to the milk. Flour clumps if it meets hot liquid unevenly. Creaming it smoothly with the butter first lets it disperse, so the milk thickens evenly without lumps.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Celerythe original

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