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Carrot Soup

A soup made from carrots, onions, celery, water, vinegar, salt, sugar, cayenne, butter, and stock, simmered and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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

Prepare

  1. Scrape the carrots, onions, and celery.

  2. Peel the carrots, onions, and celery.

  3. Wash the carrots, onions, and celery.

Cook the vegetables

  1. Place them in a saucepan with cold water, vinegar, salt, sugar, and cayenne.

  2. Boil for 2 hours and 15 minutes.

  3. Break up the vegetables in the water until they are a pulp.

  4. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the butter.

  2. Add the stock.

  3. Put the mixture into a stewpan.

  4. Stir over medium heat for 20 minutes.

  5. 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.

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. 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. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Carrots
Form the main body of the soup and give it its sweet, earthy flavour.
Onions
Add savoury depth and aroma as they soften during the long simmer.
Celery
Adds a fresh, aromatic background note to the vegetable base.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer flavour and a smoother, rounder mouthfeel.
Stock
Supplies the main liquid and savoury flavour to thin and season the pulp.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a fine sieve. Pressing the cooked vegetables through a fine sieve breaks down fibres and removes skins and stringy bits, which gives the soup a smooth, even texture. Skipping or rushing this step leaves the soup grainy.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, vinegar, sugar, 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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