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Potato Soup

A creamy potato soup with optional salt pork, milk or egg, and optional celery leaves, finished with beef fat and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Potato Soup

Why it works: Pork and beef match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Boil the potatoes, onion, and salt in a little water until very soft, then mash the mixture.

  2. Gradually add the hot water while stirring to keep it smooth.

  3. In a separate pan, cook the flour in the beef fat, then add to the soup.

Finish

  1. If using, fry bread dice in the beef fat and add them at the last minute.

  2. Optionally, fry the sliced onion before adding it to the soup for extra flavor.

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. Pork + beeftop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Potato + porktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down when boiled soft, giving the soup its body and thickness.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it boils, adding savory depth to the soup.
Flour
Cooked in fat, it thickens the liquid and keeps the soup from being thin.
Beef fat
Carries flavor and cooks the flour into a roux that helps thicken the soup.

The step that matters

Gradually add the hot water while stirring. Starch from the mashed potatoes and flour swells as it meets hot liquid, and adding the water slowly while stirring keeps it from clumping, so the soup stays smooth.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, onion, pepper, pork, milk, beef, flour):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, onion, pepper, pork, milk, beef, 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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