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Carrot Soup

A soup made from boiled carrots, celery root, butter, flour, cayenne pepper, salt, and optional sherry, served with fried croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Carrot Soup

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Carrot Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the carrots

  1. Wash and scrape the carrots.

  2. Cook the carrots in boiling water until tender, then remove them from the heat.

  3. Mix the carrots with milk and press the mixture through a sieve.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Rub in the flour and cayenne pepper.

  3. Gradually stir in the carrot puree until smooth like cream.

  4. Add the cooked celery root and salt to taste.

  5. Pour the mixture into the puree.

  6. If desired, stir in the sherry before serving.

  7. Serve with fried croutons.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Carrot + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,029 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
Form the main body and sweet, earthy flavour of the soup once pureed.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel, and carries flavour through the soup.
All-purpose flour
Melted into the butter, it thickens the soup and gives it a creamy body.

The step that matters

Gradually stir in the carrot puree. Adding the puree slowly to the butter and flour mixture lets the starch disperse evenly, so the soup thickens smoothly without lumps.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

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