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Carrot Soup

A soup made with onions, butter, celery, grated carrots, stock, and French roll crumbs, simmered and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Carrot Soup

Why it works: Celery and carrot 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

Make the soup base

  1. In a stewpan, combine sliced onions, butter, and celery.

  2. Add grated carrots and 1 pint of stock.

  3. Simmer over low heat for 1 hour.

Finish and strain

  1. Stir in 2 quarts of stock and the crumb of 2 French rolls.

  2. Boil for 15 minutes, then strain through a tammy.

  3. Keep the soup hot in a small pot without boiling.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + carrottop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Onions
Sweetness and aroma as they soften slowly in butter.
Butter
Fat that carries flavour and helps soften the vegetables without browning.
Carrots
Main flavour and sweetness, and body once simmered and strained.
French roll crumb
Thickens the soup slightly and adds body.
Stock
Liquid that cooks the vegetables and forms the soup's base.

The step that matters

Keep the soup hot without boiling. Once strained, a soup held at a boil can separate or turn dull and thin. Holding it just below a boil keeps it smooth and at serving temperature.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, celery, 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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