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Soup

Carrot Soup

A soup made from carrots, onions, celery, water, vinegar, salt, sugar, cayenne, butter, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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. Scrape, peel, and wash the carrots, onions, and celery.

  2. Put them into a pot with the water, vinegar, salt, sugar, and cayenne.

Cook and strain

  1. Boil for 2½ hours; break up the vegetables in the water until they are a pulp.

  2. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve or cloth.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the butter and the stock.

  2. Put the mixture back into the pot and stir over the fire for 25 minutes.

  3. 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.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Carrots
Form the main body of the soup and give it sweetness and colour.
Onions
Add savoury depth and aroma as they soften during the long boil.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer mouthfeel and a smoother finish.
Stock
Adds liquid and savoury flavour to the pulped vegetables.

The step that matters

Rubbing the mixture through a sieve. Vegetables must be fully softened before straining, otherwise the pulp stays grainy and the soup will not become smooth. Pushing it through a fine sieve or cloth removes the remaining fibres and lumps, giving the silky texture the soup needs.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, vinegar, sugar, 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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