Answers to life's vexing cooking questions...
What Causes Carrots to Become Bitter?
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Q. I prepared some carrots for carrot soup which included processing them in my blender. Prior to blending I set aside some of this batch to add to the soup without processing them in the blender. The blender batch ended up bitter. The carrots that I did not blend were subtly sweet and pleasant tasting. Both batches had been prepared by simmering them in chicken broth to which was added onions, garlic and cumin. The only difference was that one batch was put into the blender and one was not. This is the second time this happened to me. Years ago I tried to prepare vegetable soup following a recipe in my blender recipe book. I got that same bitter taste. What causes this? (To fix the soup, I guess I will have to add a touch of brown sugar or honey. Doesn't seem like that should be necessary.)A. At this rate, your question may wind up as someone's doctoral thesis. We have contacted various experts on fruits and vegetables and have been met by a collective shrug of the shoulders.
One, however, a postharvest specialist at the University of California, Davis, offers a few clues. Exposure to ethylene gas can cause bitterness in carrots (was anyone welding in your kitchen the day you prepared your carrots, or administering an anesthetic, perhaps?). No matter, the UC Davis folks don't think that is the most likely cause.
There is a chemical compound, terpenes, that plants may produce that can cause "harshness (often confused with bitterness) in carrots." Insect bites, for instance, can stimulate plants to produce these defense terpenes. "Perhaps," our UC Davis source says, "the physical damage associated with blending is leading to a transformation in some specific terpenes causing rapid formation of a bitter element."
So add a little brown sugar or honey, and we'll let you know when the thesis comes out.
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