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Carrots and Peas

A simple boiled carrot and pea side seasoned with butter, stock, flour, salt, sugar, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Carrots and Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Wash, scrape, and cut the carrots into small cubes.

  2. Cook the carrots in boiling water until tender, then drain and reserve ½ cup of the carrot water.

  3. Mix the cooked carrots with the peas in a large bowl.

Combine and finish

  1. Sprinkle the mixture with flour, salt, sugar, and pepper to taste.

  2. Add the butter or fat, soup stock, and reserved carrot water.

  3. Boil the mixture for a little longer, then 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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

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

  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 + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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
Provide the main body and natural sweetness of the dish.
Peas
Add bulk, soft texture, and mild sweetness to the mixture.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so the mixture becomes lightly saucy.
Butter or fat
Adds richness, smooth mouthfeel, and carries flavor.
Soup stock
Supplies savory flavor and liquid to the vegetables.
Carrot water
Adds moisture and a little carrot flavor back into the dish.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until thickened. Flour only thickens fully when the liquid is heated enough for its starch to swell. Stopping early can leave the sauce thin and taste raw and floury.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, butter, flour, sugar, 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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