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Carrot Soup Plain

A carrot soup made with carrots, celery, onion, beef bones, and water, simmered and 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 ↓

Carrot Soup Plain

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scrape the carrots.

  2. Wash the carrots, peeling off the thick outer layer.

Make the broth

  1. Place the carrots, celery, onion, and beef bones into a soup kettle with the water.

  2. Boil the mixture.

  3. Skim off any foam.

  4. Cover the soup.

  5. Simmer gently for 2 hours.

  6. Strain the soup through a sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Pulp the vegetables into a clean saucepan.

  2. Add enough broth to achieve a thickness similar to pea soup.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Heat the soup.

  5. Serve with toasted bread.

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

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

  5. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Carrots
Provide the main flavour and body, thickening the soup when pulped.
Celery
Adds aromatic flavour to the broth as it simmers.
Onion
Adds savoury, aromatic depth to the broth.
Beef bones
Release flavour and gelatin into the water during long simmering, enriching the broth.

The step that matters

Skim off any foam. Foam rising during the initial boil contains impurities that can cloud the broth and taint its flavour. Removing it early keeps the soup clear and clean-tasting before the long simmer.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, beef, 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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