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Of Carrots

A simmered carrot soup made with butter, herbs, onion, and clove, finished by mashing and simmering.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Of Carrots

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and slice the carrots.

  2. In a stewpan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  3. Add the carrots and fry until half cooked.

Make the soup

  1. Cover with broth or water and add the bay leaf, thyme, parsley, onion, and clove.

  2. Cook until everything is tender, then remove the onion, clove, bay leaf, and thyme.

  3. Mash the mixture through a colander.

  4. Return to the heat with a little butter and simmer for about 2 hours, stirring occasionally.

  5. If it becomes too thick, add more broth or water.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 once cooked and mashed.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and carries flavour as the carrots fry and finish.
Onion
Adds savoury aromatic flavour to the broth while it cooks, then is removed.
Broth or water
Provides the liquid that cooks the carrots and sets the final consistency of the soup.

The step that matters

Mashing and simmering to the right thickness. Carrots keep releasing starch and absorbing liquid as they simmer, so the soup can thicken quickly. Adding broth or water as needed keeps the texture smooth and pourable.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, butter, thyme, parsley, clove):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, butter, thyme, parsley, clove. 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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