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Puree of Carrots

A smooth carrot puree made with carrots, onion, celery, turnip, stock, sugar, salt, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Puree of Carrots

Ingredients

Directions

Make the puree

  1. Combine the sliced carrots, onion, celery, and turnip in a pot.

  2. Add the weak stock or water and cook until all vegetables are tender.

  3. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve or tammy.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the puree to the pot and simmer gently for about an hour to clarify.

  2. Season with sugar and salt, then stir in the cream just before serving.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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
Form the main body of the puree and provide natural sweetness and colour.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma and depth to the base flavour.
Turnip
Adds body and a mild earthy flavour to the puree.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the finished puree.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the earthy flavour of the vegetables.

The step that matters

Simmer gently and add the cream last. A gentle simmer concentrates flavour without scorching the puree on the pot base. Cream added at the end avoids prolonged heat, which can cause dairy to separate or taste dull.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, celery, turnip, sugar, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, turnip, sugar, 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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