Name: Carrot Soup Maiork
Ingredients: 2 ounces coarse sea salt; 1 gallon boiling water; 3 to 4 carrots, quartered or thickly sliced; 1 onion, or more to taste; 1 bunch parsley, or some parsley roots; 2 quarts carrots, scraped and washed; Pepper to taste; Additional salt if needed

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Carrot Soup Maiork

Ingredients

2 ounces coarse sea salt
1 gallon boiling water
3 to 4 carrots, quartered or thickly sliced
1 onion, or more to taste
1 bunch parsley, or some parsley roots
2 quarts carrots, scraped and washed
Pepper to taste
Additional salt if needed

Directions

Make the broth

Add the salt to the boiling water.
Add the quartered or sliced carrots, onion, and parsley.
Boil gently for over an hour, then strain the liquid back into the saucepan.

Finish the soup

Prepare more carrots by splitting them into strips the size of large macaroni and cutting them into half-finger lengths.
Boil the prepared carrots until tender, then add them with their liquid to the tureen.
Season with pepper and more salt if needed.

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.

Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,555 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together21,601 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 of flavor and sweetness, and the cut carrot pieces give the soup its texture.
Onion: Adds savory depth and aroma to the broth as it simmers.
Parsley: Adds a fresh, herbal aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Boil gently for over an hour. A gentle simmer extracts flavor slowly and keeps the liquid clear, while a hard boil can cloud the broth and break down the vegetables too much.

Swap the onion

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

Parsnipfits better
Turnipfits better
Capsicumfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, parsley, 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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Carrot Soup Maiork