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Carrot Soup

A simmered carrot soup thickened with bread crumbs and seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Carrot Soup

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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Combine the broth, sliced carrots, celery, and onion in a stewpan.

  2. Cover and simmer for 2 hours or until the carrots are soft.

  3. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve or colander to obtain a smooth pulp.

Thicken and serve

  1. Return the pulp to the stewpan and add more broth to achieve a thickness similar to pea soup.

  2. Bring the soup to a boil.

  3. Stir in the bread crumbs and boil for a few minutes.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. Serve.

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. 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. Celery + oniontop 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

Carrots
Break down into a smooth pulp that gives the soup its body and color.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help thicken the soup as it boils.
Celery
Adds savory, aromatic flavor to the broth as it simmers.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma as it softens in the broth.

The step that matters

Rubbing the mixture through a sieve. Pressing the cooked vegetables through a fine sieve breaks down their fibers into a smooth pulp. Skipping or rushing this leaves the soup gritty and uneven in texture.

Swap the onion

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

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

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