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Soup

Crécy Soup

A carrot and onion soup thickened with flour and butter, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Crécy Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. In a pot, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped onions and carrots, cooking until softened.

Make the soup

  1. Pour in the stock and bring to a boil.

  2. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

  3. Mix the flour with a little water to form a paste.

  4. Stir the flour paste into the soup gradually, ensuring it doesn't clump.

  5. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  6. Blend the soup until smooth and serve hot.

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.

  1. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Onion + chickentop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 thicken the soup as they break down.
Onion
Builds a savory base of aroma and flavor as it softens in the butter.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth, body-rich soup by starch gelatinization.
Butter
Carries the aromatics and adds richness and fat to the soup.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour paste. Flour clumps if added undiluted or too quickly to hot liquid. Mixing it into a smooth paste first and adding it gradually lets the starch disperse evenly, so it thickens without lumps.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, chicken, flour, pepper, butter):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, chicken, flour, pepper, 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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