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Carrot Soup

A hearty soup made from 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. Wash and peel the carrots.

  2. Place the carrots, celery, and onion in a gallon stew pan.

  3. Add the broth and cover the pan.

Cook and strain

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

  2. If using bread crumbs, stir them in and boil for 2-3 minutes.

  3. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve or tamis using a wooden spoon.

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

Serve

  1. Heat the soup in a clean stew pan, season with salt, and serve hot.

  2. Serve with toasted bread on the side or add it directly to the soup.

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, sweetness and colour of the soup as they soften and break down.
Celery
Adds aromatic flavour and body to the soup base.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma to the soup base.
Broth
Provides the liquid that cooks the vegetables and sets the soup's thinness and flavour.
Bread crumbs
Thicken the soup slightly by absorbing liquid and adding body.

The step that matters

Pushing the cooked mixture through a fine sieve. Soft, well-cooked vegetables must be fully pressed through the sieve so the soup is smooth. Leftover fibres or lumps spoil the texture, and the consistency can then be adjusted with more broth.

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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