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Carrot Soup

A soup of carrots, celery, onion simmered in broth, optionally thickened with bread crumbs, served with toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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. Scrape and wash the carrots, then peel off the red outside.

  2. Chop the onion and add it to a gallon stew‑pan with the carrots and celery.

  3. Pour in the broth and cover the pan.

Cook and strain

  1. Cook on low heat for 2.5 hours until the carrots are soft.

  2. Optionally add 1 cup of bread crumbs and boil for 2‑3 minutes.

  3. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve with a wooden spoon, adding more broth to achieve a thick consistency.

Serve

  1. Heat the soup in a clean stew‑pan, season with salt, and serve with toasted bread on the side.

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. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Carrot + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 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 and sweet flavour of the soup once softened and puréed.
Broth
Supplies the liquid that cooks the vegetables and sets the soup's consistency.
Celery
Adds savoury, aromatic flavour to the base of the soup.
Onion
Adds aromatic depth to the soup base as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Optional addition that helps thicken the soup as it boils.

The step that matters

Rubbing the mixture through a fine sieve. Soft cooked vegetables must be pressed fully through the sieve to form a smooth purée; leftover fibres make the soup grainy. Adding broth gradually controls the thickness.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, beef, 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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