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Carrot Soup

A soup made from carrots simmered in butter and stock, seasoned with salt and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 the carrots

  1. Scrape and cut out all specks from the carrots, wash, and dry them.

  2. Slice the carrots into quarter‑inch pieces.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a large stewpan.

  2. Add the sliced carrots to the melted butter and stew gently for 1 hour without browning.

  3. Pour in the stock or gravy soup and simmer until the carrots are tender, about 1 hour.

  4. Press the mixture through a strainer, adding salt and cayenne if needed.

  5. Boil gently for 5 minutes, skim well, 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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Carrots
Form the main body of the soup, giving bulk, sweetness and flavour once cooked soft.
Butter
Gently cooks the carrots in fat, carrying flavour and giving the soup a rich mouthfeel.
Stock or gravy soup
Provides the liquid that simmers the carrots until tender and forms the soup base.

The step that matters

Stewing the carrots without browning. Carrots stewed over gentle heat soften and release their sweetness. If they brown, the soup takes on bitter, toasted notes and a darker colour, so keep the heat low and the pan covered or stirred.

Swap the carrot

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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