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Carrot Soup

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

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

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

  2. Add the bones if you have them.

  3. Cover and simmer over medium heat for 2.5 to 3 hours until the vegetables are soft.

  4. Strain the mixture through a sieve to separate the pulp from the liquid.

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

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

Serve

  1. Fry stale bread slices in a little fat until light brown, then cut into squares.

  2. Serve with toasted bread cut into dice.

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
Provide the main body, sweetness and earthy flavor of the soup.
Onion
Adds savory aromatic depth as it softens during simmering.
Celery
Contributes a fresh, herbal aroma to the broth.
Broth
Forms the liquid base that carries flavor and sets the soup's consistency.

The step that matters

Simmering until the vegetables are fully soft. Carrots and onion must break down completely so the strained pulp becomes smooth and thickens the soup. Undercooked vegetables stay gritty and do not release their starches and sugars into the liquid.

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.

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