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Carrot Soup

A hearty soup made with carrots, onions, celery, ham, butter, and stock, seasoned with salt, pepper, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 the vegetables

  1. Clean and chop the carrots, celery, and onions.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter and add the chopped vegetables.

  3. Toss over medium heat until well mixed.

Make the soup

  1. Add the ham cut into pieces and the stock.

  2. Bring to a boil and simmer for 3 to 4 hours until the carrots are soft.

  3. Press the mixture through a sieve back into the saucepan.

Season and serve

  1. Season with salt, pepper, and sugar, then boil for a few minutes.

  2. Remove any scum that appears.

  3. Serve hot 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

Red carrots
Provide the main body, sweetness and colour of the soup once cooked and pressed.
Onions
Add aroma and sweetness as they soften during slow cooking.
Celery
Adds a savoury, herbal aroma that forms the soup's background flavour.
Ham
Contributes salty, savoury meat flavour that seasons the broth as it simmers.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour as the vegetables cook in the pan.
Broth or stock
Supplies the liquid that carries the vegetables and ham and becomes the soup's base.

The step that matters

Simmer until the carrots are fully soft. Carrots must be fully tender before straining, because firm pieces will not press through the sieve. Long simmering breaks down the plant cell walls, giving the soup a smooth, thick texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, celery, pepper, sugar, ham, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, pepper, sugar, ham, butter. 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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