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Dessert

Carrot Jam

A sweet preserve made from grated carrots, sugar, lemon juice and rind, optionally flavored with brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,351 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Carrot Jam

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the carrots

  1. Wash and peel the carrots, using only the red part.

  2. Grate or finely chop the carrots to make 1 pound of pulp.

Cook and jar

  1. In a pot, combine the carrot pulp, sugar, lemon juice, and lemon rind.

  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves and the mixture thickens.

  3. If desired, add a little brandy for flavor.

  4. Pour into sterilized jars and seal.

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 + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,351 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + brandytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Carrot + brandytop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 bulk and body of the jam once cooked down to a thick pulp.
Sugar
Sweetens the jam and, as it dissolves and concentrates, helps it thicken and keep.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness.
Lemon rind
Adds aromatic lemon oils that give the jam a fresher, fragrant flavor.

The step that matters

Cooking until the sugar dissolves and the mixture thickens. Sugar concentration and heat together set the jam; stopping too early leaves it runny and spoilable, while overcooking or insufficient stirring can scorch the sugar and carrot pulp on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, brandy. 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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