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Carrot Soup

A soup made from grated carrots simmered in broth, optionally with tomato, butter, mace, salt, and finished with cream or milk and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Carrot Soup

Why it works: Carrot and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,606 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Carrot Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scrape and finely grate the carrots, using only the outer rind.

  2. If available, slice the tomato and add it to the grated carrots.

Make the soup

  1. Heat the broth in a pot and season with fried onions in butter, mace, and salt.

  2. Add the grated carrots to the broth, cover, and simmer for 2 to 3 hours.

  3. Once soft, strain the mixture through a fine sieve until smooth.

  4. If desired, stir in cream or milk and egg yolks for added richness.

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 + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + beeftop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  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 colour of the soup.
Broth
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour and dissolves the carrot solids.
Onions
Add savoury depth as they soften and brown in butter.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps the onions cook in a mellow, browned way.
Cream or milk
Adds fat and a smoother, richer texture when stirred in.

The step that matters

Simmering until soft. The carrots must cook long enough to break down fully; under-cooked pieces stay firm and leave the soup grainy, even after straining.

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, onion, beef, butter, mace, cream):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, beef, butter, mace, 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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