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Carrot Cream Soup

A creamy soup made with boiled carrots, milk, butter, flour, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Martin, Maria Ewing, Mrs., [from old catalog] comp · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Carrot Cream Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the carrots

  1. Boil carrots until tender, chop fine, and reduce the water in which they were boiled to 1 cup.

Make the soup

  1. Rub 1 tablespoon butter with 2 tablespoons flour in a hot saucepan, season with salt and pepper, and add gradually 3 cups milk, stirring until it boils.

  2. Turn in the carrots and carrot broth, let boil once, and serve.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

563Calories
13 gProtein
13 gFat
96 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Martin, Maria Ewing, Mrs., [from old catalog] comp. 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. See the original page.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Fat that is rubbed with flour to begin the roux base of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth cream as it cooks with the butter.
Milk (in the method)
Forms the liquid base of the cream soup.
Carrots (in the method)
Provide the main flavor and body of the soup once chopped fine.

The step that matters

Adding the milk gradually. Adding milk slowly to the hot butter and flour mixture while stirring keeps the flour dispersed, so the sauce becomes smooth instead of lumpy.

“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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