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Glazed Carrots with Peas

A sweet and savory side dish of glazed carrots served with peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mint and peas are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Glazed Carrots with Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the carrots

  1. Wash, scrape, and cut the carrots into cubes or fancy shapes.

  2. Parboil the carrots for 15 minutes, then drain.

Glaze the carrots

  1. In a pan, melt the butter and add the sugar and mint leaves.

  2. Add the carrots and cook slowly until glazed and tender.

Heat the peas and serve

  1. Heat the peas in their liquid for 5 minutes, then drain and season with butter, salt, and pepper.

  2. Mound the peas on a hot dish and surround it with the glazed carrots.

  3. Optionally, combine the peas and carrots before serving.

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. Mint + peastop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

  3. Carrot + peastop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Mint + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,372 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Carrot + minttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together538 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 become tender and sweet when glazed.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying the flavour and helping the glaze coat the carrots.
Sugar
Sweetens the carrots and helps form a glossy caramelised glaze as it cooks down.
Peas
Provide a sweet, tender green vegetable base for the mounded presentation.

The step that matters

Cook the carrots slowly until glazed. Over high heat the sugar and butter can scorch before the carrots soften, leaving a burnt, bitter glaze. Gentle heat lets the sugar melt and caramelise evenly while the carrots become tender.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, butter, sugar, peas, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, butter, sugar, peas, pepper. 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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