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Carrot Soup

A vegetable soup made with carrots, celery, onion, and broth, optionally thickened with bread crumbs.

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

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 tightly.

Cook and strain

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

  2. If desired, add the bread crumbs and boil for 2-3 minutes.

  3. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve with a wooden spoon.

  4. Add more broth to achieve a thickness similar to pea soup.

Finish

  1. Heat the soup in a clean stew pan and season with salt and pepper to taste.

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 + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 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 flavor and body of the soup as they soften and break down.
Celery
Adds aromatic depth to the broth as it simmers with the vegetables.
Onion
Contributes savory sweetness and aroma as it cooks slowly in the pan.
Beef, veal, or mutton broth
Supplies the liquid that softens the vegetables and sets the soup's savory base.
Bread crumbs
Thicken the soup slightly when boiled in, adding body to the purée.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a fine sieve. Pressing the cooked vegetables through a sieve breaks them into a smooth purée. Skipping or rushing this leaves fibrous, lumpy texture that the soup cannot recover from later.

Swap the onion

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

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

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