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 ↓
Another Carrot Soup
Ingredients
Directions
In a large pot, bring the stock to a boil.
Add the carrots, onions, celery, and turnips.
Cook until the vegetables are soft.
Pass the mixture through a sieve to puree.
Stir in the butter and sugar.
Boil for an additional 15 minutes before serving.
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.
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Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,173 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,002 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,418 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
-
Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,585 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Provide the main body, sweetness and colour of the soup.
- Onions
- Add savoury depth and aroma as they soften in the stock.
- Celery
- Adds aromatic flavour and body to the vegetable base.
- Turnips
- Add earthy flavour and thickness once softened and pureed.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel to the finished soup.
The step that matters
Pass the mixture through a sieve to puree. Vegetables must be fully soft before sieving, otherwise the purée stays grainy and thin rather than smooth.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, celery, turnip, butter, sugar):
- Parsnipfits better
- Leekfits better
- Beetrootfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, turnip, butter, sugar. 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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