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Stewed Carrots

A simple dish of carrots simmered in water, butter, flour, and sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Stewed Carrots

Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Carrots

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the carrots

  1. Wash and scrape the carrots, then quarter them.

  2. Place the carrots in a stew pan and cover with water.

  3. Add a little coarse sea salt and boil until tender.

  4. Drain the carrots.

Finish and serve

  1. Add 2 tablespoons of butter rubbed into some flour.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

  3. Add enough sweet cream to moisten the mixture.

  4. Bring to a boil and serve hot.

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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  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. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 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
Make up the main body of the dish and provide natural sweetness as they cook.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor through the stewed mixture.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells when heated with the butter and cream.
Sweet cream
Moistens the mixture and adds creaminess to form a smooth, rich coating.

The step that matters

Rubbing the butter into the flour. Flour must be evenly distributed through the fat so it does not form lumps. Its starch only thickens the mixture once it is well dispersed and heated, so the boil after adding cream matters.

Swap the carrot

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

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

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