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Carrot Soup

A creamy soup made from carrots, onions, stock, milk, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Carrot Soup

Why it works: Pepper and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Carrot Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Combine carrots and onion with enough water to cover in a pot and cook for 30 minutes or until tender.

  2. Press the mixture through a strainer to obtain 2 cups of stock.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter over medium heat in a separate saucepan, add the flour, and stir to make a roux.

  2. Gradually whisk in the stock and milk, stirring until smooth.

  3. Season with salt and pepper to taste and 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. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 flavor of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and forms the base of the roux.
Flour
Thickens the soup when cooked in butter to form a roux.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the soup's texture.
Stock
Supplies the liquid base and savory flavor of the soup.

The step that matters

Making the roux. Flour must cook in melted butter long enough to lose its raw taste while staying pale. Stirring constantly over medium heat prevents lumps and scorching, and the roux then thickens the liquid smoothly when stock and milk are whisked in gradually.

Swap the onion

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

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

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