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Crecy Soup

A soup of carrots, turnip, celery, onion, bacon rinds, boiled in water with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Crecy Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the vegetables

  1. Bring 3 pints of water to a boil in a large pot.

  2. Add the chopped carrots, turnip, celery, onion, and salt.

  3. Cook for 20 minutes, then remove the vegetables.

Finish the soup

  1. Melt the butter over low heat in a separate pot.

  2. Add the cooked vegetables and bacon rinds to the butter.

  3. Cook gently for a few minutes to combine flavors.

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 + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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
Add sweetness and body as they soften in the simmering broth.
Onion
Builds savory aroma and sweetness as it cooks down.
Butter
Carries flavor and adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the soup.
Bacon rinds
Release savory, smoky flavor into the soup during gentle cooking.
Turnip
Adds body and a mildly sweet, earthy flavor as it softens.

The step that matters

Cook gently for a few minutes to combine flavors.. Low heat keeps the butter from browning or scorching while the vegetables soften and their flavors blend. Too much heat can make the butter taste bitter and stick to the pot.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, celery, butter. 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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