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Carrot Soup

A soup made from carrots, butter, sugar, salt, pepper, and bone stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Carrot Soup

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 Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and slice the carrots.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter and add the carrots.

Cook

  1. Sprinkle with sugar, salt, and pepper, and sauté for 5 minutes.

  2. Pour in the boiling stock and boil for 1 hour.

Finish and serve

  1. Pass the mixture through a sieve, return to the saucepan, and bring to a boil.

  2. Season to taste and serve very 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 + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

  5. 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

Carrots
Form the soup's main body and provide its natural sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich, smooth mouthfeel and carries flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the carrots brown lightly while sautéing.
Bone stock
Supplies the liquid and savory depth that the soup is built on.

The step that matters

Sautéing the carrots with sugar. Sugar browns quickly over direct heat and can scorch before the carrots soften. Keeping the heat moderate and stirring lets the sugar caramelize for flavor without turning bitter.

Swap the carrot

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, 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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