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Cream of Carrot Soup

A creamy carrot soup made with carrots, onion, rice, milk, butter, flour, and seasonings, finished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Cream of Carrot Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the carrots

  1. Cook the chopped carrots in water until tender.

  2. Press the cooked carrots through a sieve, reserving the cooking water.

Make the soup

  1. In a double boiler, cook the rice in the scalded milk.

  2. Cook the onion in butter.

  3. Add flour and seasonings.

  4. Combine the carrot puree with the rice and milk.

  5. Add the butter mixture and reserved carrot water.

  6. Bring the soup to a boil.

  7. Strain the soup.

  8. If the soup is too thick, thin it with cream or milk.

Serve

  1. Serve garnished with chopped parsley.

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.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 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. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Carrots
Break down into a smooth puree that gives the soup its body and sweet flavour.
Rice
Softens in the milk and releases starch, adding body and thickness to the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup when cooked with butter and liquid, giving it a smoother, heavier texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and giving a smooth mouthfeel.
Milk
Provides creaminess and a mild, rounded flavour as the main liquid with the rice.
Onion
Cooked slowly in butter to build a savoury aroma as the soup's base flavour.

The step that matters

Bring the soup to a boil. Milk-based soups thickened with flour can scorch on the bottom or separate if boiled too hard or left unstirred. Stir often and keep the heat controlled once it reaches a boil.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, pepper, parsley, rice, milk, butter, flour. 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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