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White Sauce for Carrots

A white sauce made by melting butter, adding flour, salt, paprika, and milk, cooked until creamy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Cinnamon and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,287 recipes. Both carry 4-methoxybenzaldehyde, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

White Sauce for Carrots

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt butter.

  2. Add flour, salt, and paprika. Mix well.

  3. Gradually add milk. Cook sauce until creamy.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

1097Calories
28 gProtein
25 gFat
195 gCarbs

Counts 14 of 18 ingredients. The other 4 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 14 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Potato1 medium (173g) baked161
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Apple1 medium (182g)95
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Carrot1 medium (61g)25
Tomato1 medium (123g)22
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Cinnamon1 tsp ground (2.6g)6
Ginger1 tsp grated fresh (2g)2
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0
Saucenot in our table0
Cakenot in our table0
Meatnot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Louise Bennett Weaver and Helen Cowles LeCron. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Cinnamon + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  2. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Tomato + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  4. Apple + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,501 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Butter
Melts to form the fat base that carries the flour and gives the sauce richness.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with the fat and liquid, giving it body.
Milk
Forms the liquid that the flour thickens, creating the smooth sauce body.

The step that matters

Gradually add milk. Adding the milk slowly while stirring lets the starch disperse evenly; dumping it in at once can trap lumps of flour that stay hard to smooth out.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, sauce, potato, apple, cinnamon, vanilla):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, sauce, potato, apple, cinnamon, vanilla. 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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