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Carrot Soup a LA Crecy

A carrot soup made with carrots, onions, celery, stock, water, sugar, salt, and cream, served with fried bread croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Carrot Soup a LA Crecy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the carrots.

  2. Scrape the carrots.

  3. Slice off the red part of the carrots.

  4. Thinly cut the onions.

  5. Thinly cut the celery.

  6. Boil the carrots, onions, and celery in 2 quarts of water with salt for a few minutes.

  7. Strain the mixture.

Make the soup

  1. Place the strained mixture in a stewpan with the white stock and additional water.

  2. Boil until very tender.

  3. Strain off the stock.

  4. Pound the carrots into a pulp.

  5. Return the pulp to the stewpan with another pint of white stock.

  6. Check for softness.

  7. Rub the mixture through a tammy cloth.

  8. Bring the mixture back to a boil.

  9. Add sugar and salt.

Serve

  1. Serve with small croutons of fried bread.

  2. Stir in cream just before serving.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Carrots
Break down into a pulp that thickens the soup and gives it body and natural sweetness.
Onions
Soften during boiling to add savoury depth and mild sweetness to the base.
Celery
Adds a fresh, aromatic vegetable flavour to the base.
White stock
Supplies the main liquid and savoury flavour of the soup.
Cream
Adds fat for a rich, smooth mouthfeel.
Sugar
Rounds out the flavour with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Stir in the cream just before serving. Cream is best added at the end, not boiled after it goes in. Prolonged boiling can make dairy separate or turn grainy, while gentle warming keeps the soup smooth and rich.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, celery, sugar, bread, cream):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, sugar, bread, cream. 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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