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Cream of Carrot Soup

A creamy soup made from carrots, milk, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Cream of Carrot Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the carrots

  1. Wash and scrape the carrots, then cut them into pieces.

  2. Place the carrots in boiling water to cover and add 1 teaspoon of salt.

  3. Boil for 30 to 40 minutes, or until tender.

  4. Drain the carrots and mash them through a fine strainer.

Make the soup

  1. In a double boiler, heat the milk until it boils, then add the mashed carrots.

  2. In a small frying pan, melt the butter and sauté the onion.

  3. Stir in the flour until smooth.

  4. Gradually add 2 cups of the carrot cooking water, stirring until smooth and creamy.

  5. Combine this mixture with the milk and carrots, then strain.

  6. Add the remaining salt, pepper, and parsley, and cook for three minutes.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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, sweetness and flavor of the soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and richness to the soup base.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying the flavor of the sautéed onion.
Flour
Thickens the soup by swelling in the hot liquid to give body.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and carrot water. Stir the flour into the butter and onion until smooth before adding liquid, and add the carrot water gradually while stirring. This keeps the starch dispersed so the soup thickens evenly without lumps.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, butter, milk, flour, parsley, 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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