Skip to main content
Main

Carrot Soup

A soup made from carrots, onion, celery, broth, and optional bones, seasoned with salt and pepper, served with toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
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 the soup

  1. Slice the carrots and place them in a saucepan with the onion, celery, and broth.

  2. Add the bones if available and cover the saucepan.

  3. Simmer over moderate heat for 2.5 to 3 hours until the vegetables are soft.

Strain and season

  1. Strain the mixture through a sieve, pressing the vegetables to extract the pulp.

  2. If the soup is too thick, thin it with additional broth or hot water.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, then bring to a boil again.

Serve

  1. Serve with toasted bread cut into dice or fry stale bread slices in a little fat until light brown, then drain and 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. Onion + celerytop 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
Main body of the soup, giving sweetness, colour and pulp when pressed through a sieve.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma as it softens in the broth.
Broth
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour and cooks the vegetables.
Celery
Contributes aromatic, savoury flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Simmering until the vegetables are soft. Vegetables must be fully softened so they break down easily when pressed through the sieve; undercooked carrots leave a grainy, thick pulp and a weaker flavour.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, meat, pepper, bread. 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.

More carrot soup recipes

Puree 5with Rice 3Creamy 3 See all 219 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes