Home › Soups with Meat, and Purees › Carrot Puree
Carrot Puree
Use only the outer, dark-colored portion of the carrots. Scrape, wash, and cut in dice enough to make a cupful. Fry them in 2 tablespoonfuls of butter until slightly browned. Pour over them enough broth to well cover, and simmer until soft. Let it cook until reduced to a thick pulp. Stir in 5 or 6 tablespoonfuls of bechamel sauce, and strain through a fine strainer. Add 6 pints of white broth and strain again, and put it on the fire and stir until it bubbles; then set it aside to cool and skim off all fat from the top. Beat the yolks of 4 eggs, mix them with half a cup of cream, and strain through a sieve into the puree; then put it over the fire and stir until it thickens. It must not boil. Add a few noodles and a lump of butter the size of an egg; pour into a hot tureen, and serve.
A classic French-style cream soup: carrot purée bound with béchamel, thinned with broth, and finished with an egg-and-cream liaison. Everything hangs on that last step.
- The liaison must not boilOnce the yolks and cream go in, hold the pot between 160 and 180F and stir constantly until it coats the spoon. A single boil curdles the yolks and the soup turns grainy; no amount of straining will bring it back.
- "Outer, dark-colored portion"Older carrot varieties had a pale, woody, bitter core that was cut away. Modern carrots are bred to be uniform and sweet throughout, so simply scrape and dice the whole root.
- ProportionsA cupful of diced carrot against six pints of broth gives a very pale, thin soup. For a purée with real carrot flavour, use three to four cups of diced carrot to six pints of broth, or reduce the broth to about two pints for a smaller batch.
- White brothAn unbrowned stock from veal or chicken bones, kept light in colour. A good low-sodium chicken stock stands in; season at the end, since the reduction concentrates salt.
- BéchamelBechamel -- Five or six tablespoons implies a fairly thick sauce of butter and flour cooked in milk; the recipe does not specify its temperature. Its job here is body, not flavour, so season it only with salt and a scrape of nutmeg.
- Fry the carrots firstThe initial browning in butter is not incidental. It builds the sweetness and colour that carry the finished soup, so give the dice ten minutes over moderate heat rather than rushing them.
- Chilling and skimmingCooling the base and lifting the set fat gives a cleaner soup, but it also means the whole thing must be reheated gently before the yolks go in. Refrigerate overnight if it suits your schedule.
- The noodlesThe recipe specifies only "a few noodles"; fine egg noodles or vermicelli suit the soup, and cooking them separately and adding them at the last moment keeps their starch from clouding the puree.
- YieldAs written, six pints of broth plus the garnish serves twelve to fourteen as a first course. Halve everything for a household batch.