Skip to main content
Main

Carrot Soup

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
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; slice the tomato if using.

Make the soup

  1. Heat the broth and season it 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. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve to create a smooth puree.

  4. If desired, boil the soup and add cream or milk and egg yolks for richness.

Serve

  1. Serve hot.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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 as they break down during simmering.
Broth
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour and extracts the carrot's sweetness.
Onions
Fried in butter first, they add savoury depth and aroma to the base.
Cream or milk
Adds fat and richness, giving the soup a softer, smoother mouthfeel.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup slightly, adding body and a silky texture.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if they meet a boiling liquid directly. Whisking them with a little warm soup first and adding them off the heat helps keep the soup smooth.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, butter, mace, meat, cream, egg. 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.

More carrot soup recipes

Puree 5with Rice 3Creamy 3 See all 219 →

You might also like

Meatless Tomato SoupMeatless Tomato Soup23 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes