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Duchess Soup

A carrot and tomato soup thickened with butter, flour, and milk, seasoned with salt and pepper.

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

Duchess Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Fry the carrots in butter for about 5 minutes.

  2. Add hot water and beef extract, then add tomatoes and let boil for 10 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture.

Make the soup

  1. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a pan, then stir in flour.

  2. Add milk and bring to a boil.

  3. Add the strained stock, then season with salt and pepper to taste.

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. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Carrots
Add sweetness and body as they soften in butter and flavor the stock.
Butter
Carries flavor and adds richness to the carrots and the sauce base.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth, body-giving base.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the soup and adds richness and softness.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and fruity flavor to the stock.

The step that matters

Stirring flour into melted butter. Flour must be cooked briefly in the butter before liquid is added. Stirring it smooth and cooking it lightly prevents lumps and removes raw starch taste, so the sauce thickens evenly.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Parsnipfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, butter, beef, flour, milk, 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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