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Carrot Soup

A soup made from carrots, celery, onion, butter, stock or water, sweetened with sugar, seasoned with pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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. Peel and chop the carrots, celery, and onion.

  2. Boil them in water for a few minutes to preserve color.

  3. Drain and place in a saucepan with butter over low heat.

Cook and finish

  1. Stew gently, ensuring they do not burn or brown.

  2. Add stock or water and boil until tender.

  3. Rub the mixture through a wire sieve.

  4. Stir in a little butter, pounded sugar, pepper, and salt to taste.

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
Provide the main body, sweetness and color of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Onion
Builds savory aromatic depth as it softens over gentle heat.
Celery
Adds a mild, herbal aroma that rounds out the vegetable flavor.
Stock or water
Provides the liquid that lets the vegetables soften fully until tender.

The step that matters

Stew gently without browning. Over low heat the vegetables soften in their own moisture and butter. Higher heat causes browning, which changes the flavor and color from the clean, bright taste this soup depends on.

Swap the onion

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

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

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