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To Stew Carrots

A simple dish of carrots simmered in butter until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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To Stew Carrots

Why it works: Carrot and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 24% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,083 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

To Stew Carrots

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scrape and clean the carrots well.

  2. Cut them into little wheels or narrow strips.

Stew

  1. Place the carrots in boiling water, just enough to cover them.

  2. Add a piece of butter as soon as they begin to boil.

  3. Allow the liquid to soak in gradually.

  4. Cook for about 1 hour, or until tender if young.

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 + buttertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Carrots
Form the main body of the dish and, as they soften, supply its sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer mouthfeel and a rounder flavor to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Cooking until tender. Heat softens carrots by breaking down their cell walls and pectin, and the rate varies with age and cut size. Judging by tenderness rather than the clock alone prevents carrots that are either firm in the center or mushy at the edges.

“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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