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Carrot Soup

A soup made from carrots, onion, butter, salt, pepper, allspice, served hot with toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Carrot Soup

Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Carrot Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scrape the carrots well and cut off the tops by a quarter of an inch.

  2. Boil the carrots in a saucepan of salted water with the onion until tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Place the butter in a warmed tureen and let it partially melt.

  2. Sprinkle a little pepper and allspice over the butter.

  3. Strain the carrots and their liquid into the tureen, rubbing the carrots through the strainer.

  4. Stir until the butter is fully melted and serve hot with toasted bread.

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. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Carrot + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,021 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Carrots
Form the body of the soup, giving bulk, natural sweetness and a smooth texture when puréed.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel as it melts into the strained soup.
Onion
Adds savoury depth as it softens in the cooking water with the carrots.

The step that matters

Rubbing the carrots through the strainer. Pressing cooked carrots through a strainer breaks down their cell walls, producing a smooth purée; skipping this leaves the soup grainy and thin.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, butter, pepper, bread. 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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