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Carrot Cream Soup

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Carrot Cream Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the carrots

  1. Boil the carrots until tender, then chop them finely.

  2. Reduce the water from boiling the carrots to 1 cup.

Make the soup

  1. In a hot saucepan, rub together the butter and flour.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, then gradually add the milk, stirring until it boils.

  3. Add the chopped carrots and the reduced carrot water, then let it boil once more before serving.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Carrot + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,029 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Carrots
Provide the main flavour, body and sweetness of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and giving a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the soup by swelling in the hot fat and milk to form a smooth body.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base and adds richness and body.

The step that matters

Gradually adding the milk to the butter and flour. Adding liquid slowly while stirring lets the flour disperse evenly, preventing lumps. Stirring until it boils lets the starch thicken the soup fully.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, pepper. 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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