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Carrot Soup

A soup made from boiled carrots, milk, butter, flour, and sweet cream, garnished with cayenne or paprika.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Carrot Soup

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Carrot Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the carrots

  1. Slice and boil the carrots until tender.

  2. Press the carrots through a vegetable ricer.

Make the soup

  1. Make a roux by cooking the butter and flour together.

  2. Pour the roux over the carrot pulp and hot milk.

  3. Add the sweet cream and mix well.

Serve

  1. Serve in cups topped with a spoonful of whipped cream and sprinkle with cayenne or paprika.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Carrot + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,029 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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
Form the main body and sweet flavour of the soup once boiled and pressed to a pulp.
Milk
Adds liquid and creaminess, thinning the carrot pulp into a smooth soup.
Butter
Fat that combines with flour to make the roux, enriching flavour and texture.
Flour
Thickens the soup when cooked with butter into a roux.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the soup a smoother, silkier body.

The step that matters

Making the roux. Flour must be cooked with butter until blended and smooth before adding liquid. Cooking removes raw flour taste and lets starch thicken evenly, so the soup avoids lumps and a pasty flavour.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, flour, 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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