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Carrot Soup

A soup made from carrots, onions, celery, milk, cream, butter, flour, sugar, salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

  1. Clean and slice the carrots and onions.

  2. Chop the outside stalks of the celery and place all vegetables in a kettle with the milk.

  3. Add seasoning and sugar, then simmer until the vegetables are very soft.

  4. Pass the mixture through a sieve.

Thicken and finish

  1. Blend the flour and butter until very smooth.

  2. Add the mixture to the soup.

  3. Cook for a few moments.

  4. Stir in the cream.

  5. Serve.

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

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

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

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

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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 flavour of the soup.
Onions
Add savoury depth and aroma as they soften in the milk.
Flour
Thickens the soup with the butter as a roux-style paste.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the flour blend smoothly into the soup.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that cooks the vegetables.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel at the end.

The step that matters

Blend the flour and butter until very smooth. Lumps of flour stay lumpy when added to hot liquid because starch grains clump before they disperse. Mixing flour fully with the butter first lets it disperse evenly and thicken the soup smoothly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, sugar, flour, celery, butter, milk, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, sugar, flour, celery, butter, milk, cream. 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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