Caramelized Carrot Soup

One of the most impor­tant flavor-producing reac­tions in cook­ing is the Maillard reac­tion. It is some­times called “the brown­ing reac­tion” in dis­cus­sions of cook­ing, but that descrip­tion is incom­plete at best. Indeed, it really ought be called “the fla­vor reac­tion,” not “the brown­ing reaction.”

To be sure, the Maillard reac­tion does cre­ate pig­ments that lend cooked food a tasty brown hue. It all starts with amino acids and cer­tain sim­ple sug­ars. Heat and chem­istry cause those rel­a­tively sim­ple com­pounds to rearrange into new mol­e­cules, and those pro­duce and then arrange them­selves in turn into rings and col­lec­tions of rings. The mol­e­cules pro­duced keep react­ing in ever more com­plex ways that gen­er­ate lit­er­ally hun­dreds of new kinds of com­pounds. Some are pig­ments that turn the food an appeal­ing brown color. But beyond these are a wide array of delec­table fla­vor and aroma com­pounds. It is the mainly the Maillard reac­tion we have to thank for the potent and char­ac­ter­is­tic smells of roast­ing, bak­ing, and frying.

Pressure cook­ers are par­tic­u­larly suited for pro­mot­ing the high tem­per­a­tures needed to accel­er­ate both the Maillard reac­tion and carameliza­tion. These two processes are fre­quently mis­taken for each other. They do go hand in hand in many prac­ti­cal sit­u­a­tions, but they involve dif­fer­ent chem­i­cal reac­tions. Whether you are carameliz­ing the food or “Maillardizing” it, you want to raise the tem­per­a­ture well above the boil­ing point of water to get these reac­tions going at a good clip. In a pres­sure cooker, the tem­per­a­ture of the steam can well rise above 100 °C / 212 °F.

–adapted from “Meat and Seafood” in Modernist Cuisine, vol­ume 3

After tast­ing this soup at our research kitchen, Leslie Kelly wrote on the Al Dente blog that it has

 

Additional Tips:

  • Make sure to core your car­rots. The soup will be sweeter, as the cores tend to carry a bit­ter aftertaste.

    •  

  • Melt the but­ter in the pres­sure cooker before adding the car­rots. When you add the car­rots, stir to fully coat them with the but­ter. This will pre­vent burning.

    •  

  • Do not leave out the bak­ing soda. The bak­ing soda helps to facil­i­tate the Maillard reaction.

    •  

  • When sim­mer­ing the car­rot juice, do so until you see a sep­a­ra­tion (a lighter orange layer will float to the top).

    •  

  • To make carotene but­ter, bring 2.2 kg of car­rot juice to a sim­mer and blend in 1.4 kg of but­ter. Simmer for at least 30 min­utes. Blend in another 800 g of car­rot juice. Divide the mix­ture between an equal num­ber of cen­trifuges, and cen­trifuge the bot­tles at 27,500g for one hour. Refrigerate so that the but­ter­fat solid­i­fies. Strain out the con­gealed but­ter­fat, reserv­ing the car­rot juice for another use. Warm the but­ter­fat, and strain out all par­tic­u­lates. Refrigerate to set.

    •  

  • You can also make carotene but­ter with­out a cen­trifuge. Simmer the car­rot juice and but­ter for 90 min­utes instead of 30 min­utes, and then let the mix­ture refrig­er­ate overnight until the but­ter­fat solid­i­fies. Then strain, clar­ify, and refrig­er­ate as described above.

    •  

  • Regular unsalted but­ter can be sub­sti­tuted for the carotene butter.

    •  

  • If you are not using a cen­trifuge the clar­ify the car­rot juice or the carotene but­ter, strain them through a fine sieve lined with cheesecloth.

    •  

  • Use sil­i­cone half-sphere molds to set the carotene but­ter. Vacuum seal a few together. You can freeze them up to six months, or refrig­er­ate them for two days.

    •  

  • Run the pureed soup through a fine sieve before serv­ing for a smooth, con­sis­tent texture.

    •  

  • Look for ajowan seeds at Indian gro­cery stores or online spice sell­ers. The spelling may vary among brands; it is spelled dif­fer­ently in dif­fer­ent regions of India. Ajowain, ajwain, ajwan, jowan, jwano, and jwamo all refer to the same ingredient.

    •  

  • Make sure to buy the ajowan seeds used for cook­ing, not those used for tea.

    •  

  • Leftover ajowan seeds are good toasted and sprin­kled over yogurt. In India, the seeds are a pop­u­lar digestif.

    •  

  • Try pair­ing the car­rot soup with coconut chut­ney foam; see page 4·282 or 6·325 for a recipe. Use the sea­son­ings as rec­om­mended in the recipe above, or sprin­kle some chaat masala on top, either store-bought or from the recipe on page 5·282 and 6·50.

    •  

Caramelized car­rot soup plated with coconut chut­ney foam, ajowan seeds, fresh tar­ragon, and baby carrots.

Adding bak­ing soda increases the Maillard reaction.

What we com­monly call brown­ing is tech­ni­cally the Maillard reac­tion. Thanks to the high level of nat­ural sug­ars found in car­rots, they caramelize as well.

Carotene but­ter, before and after centrifuging

After cook­ing the car­rots in a pres­sure cooker, blend them with car­rot juice and carotene but­ter (or reg­u­lar unsalted but­ter if no carotene but­ter is available).

Ajowan seeds can be found at Indian gro­cery stores, although the spelling may vary from brand to brand.


Check out the dis­cus­sion on our forum!