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Excellent Carrot Soup

A hearty soup made with broth, onions, carrots, and optional beetroot, simmered and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beetroot and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 699 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Excellent Carrot Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a large pot, combine the broth, onions, beetroot (if using), pepper, salt, and beef bones.

  2. Stew the mixture for 2 to 3 hours.

  3. Strain the soup and pour it over the sliced carrots.

Cook and thicken

  1. Boil until the carrots are soft enough to be pulped through a sieve.

  2. Use wooden spoons to push the carrot pulp through the sieve into the soup.

  3. Return the pulp to the soup and boil until thickened.

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.

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. Beetroot + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together699 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + beetroottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,261 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
Break down into pulp that thickens the soup and gives it body and sweetness.
Onions
Add savory depth and aroma to the broth as it stews.
Beef bones
Release gelatin and flavor into the broth during long stewing, adding body.

The step that matters

Boil until the carrots are soft enough to be pulped through a sieve. Carrots that are not fully softened will not press through the sieve smoothly, leaving gritty pieces. Full softening breaks down the cell walls so the pulp becomes smooth and thickens the soup evenly.

Swap the beetroot

The recipe marks beetroot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, onion, pepper, beef, carrot):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Beetrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion, pepper, beef, carrot. 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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