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Carrot Soup

A soup made from young carrots, butter, salt, sugar, and rich broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Carrot Soup

Why it works: Butter and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98,233 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Carrot Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and clean the carrots, then slice them thin.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the carrots, butter, salt, and sugar.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook slowly, turning often, until the carrots color.

  2. Add the broth and boil gently until the carrots are soft.

  3. Rub the mixture through a sieve.

  4. Return to the saucepan 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.

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. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Carrot + buttertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,083 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + sugartop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,211 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Young carrots
Form the main body of the soup and give its sweet, earthy flavor.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the carrots brown gently as they cook.
Sugar
Encourages browning and adds a touch of sweetness to the carrots.
Rich broth
Adds liquid and savory depth, and softens the carrots as it simmers.

The step that matters

Cook slowly, turning often, until the carrots color. Low heat and frequent turning brown the carrot sugars evenly without scorching. Scorched spots would add a bitter taste to the whole soup.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar. 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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