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Carrots, a LA Francaise

Carrots cooked with salt, sugar, butter, milk, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Carrots, a LA Francaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and boil

  1. Scrape the carrots and cut the small ends in half and the large ends into eighths.

  2. Boil the carrots in water with salt and sugar for 1 hour.

  3. Drain the carrots on a cloth and place them in a saucepan with butter.

Make the sauce

  1. Shake the carrots until the butter is nearly absorbed.

  2. Pour the milk and simmer gently for 1 hour.

  3. Beat the egg yolks and stir them into the milk, simmering for 2 minutes.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the carrots and serve.

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.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Carrot + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Carrots
Form the body of the dish and soften into tender pieces during long cooking.
Butter
Adds richness and a glossy coating that clings to the carrots.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that becomes the sauce.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milk into a smooth sauce as their proteins set with gentle heat.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the savory butter and salt.

The step that matters

Stir the egg yolks into the milk and simmer gently. Egg yolk proteins set when heated, so they thicken the sauce smoothly at a gentle simmer. Too much heat or boiling can scramble the yolks into grainy curds.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, egg. 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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