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Glazed Carrots

A side dish of carrots simmered in stock, sugar, and butter until glazed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98,233 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Glazed Carrots

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and scrape the carrots.

  2. Parboil the carrots in salted water until slightly tender.

Glaze

  1. Drain the carrots well and place them in a saucepan with stock and sugar.

  2. Boil over medium heat until the liquid reduces to a glaze.

  3. Add butter and a sprinkle of salt, then shake the pan until the butter is well mixed.

  4. Ensure the carrots absorb all the sauce in the pan.

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. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  3. Carrot + sugartop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,211 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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 absorb the glaze as their sugars concentrate.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the reduced stock turn into a glossy, sticky glaze.
Butter
Adds richness and gloss, emulsifying with the reduced liquid to coat the carrots.
Stock
Provides the liquid that reduces down to a savoury glaze around the carrots.

The step that matters

Reducing the stock to a glaze. If the liquid is left to boil too long, it can reduce past a glaze and scorch the sugar, while stopping too early leaves a thin, watery sauce. Watching the pan closely helps the sauce cling to the carrots.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter. 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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