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Soup

Clear Soup, with Vegetables

A clear soup of water simmered with onion, carrot, celery and bay leaf, then strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Clear Soup, with Vegetables

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the broth

  1. Bring the water to a boil in a large pot.

  2. Add the chopped onion, sliced carrots, chopped celery and bay leaf.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Simmer for 30 minutes.

Strain and serve

  1. Strain the soup to remove the vegetables.

  2. Serve hot.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  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

Onion
Releases savory aromatic compounds into the water as it simmers, building the soup's base flavor.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and a mild earthy flavor to the broth.
Celery
Contributes a fresh, herbal aroma that rounds out the broth's flavor.
Bay leaf
Adds a subtle, herbal aroma that deepens the broth as it steeps.

The step that matters

Simmer gently rather than boiling hard. Once the water is at a boil, a gentle simmer keeps the broth clear. Vigorous boiling agitates fats and fine particles, which emulsify and cloud the liquid, and can break down the vegetables into the broth before straining.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, 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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