Name: Carrots, to Dress, in the German Way
Ingredients: 8 large carrots; 3 oz. butter; salt to taste; a pinch of grated nutmeg; 1 tablespoon finely minced parsley; 1 dessertspoon minced onion; 1 pint weak stock or broth; 1 tablespoon flour

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Carrots, to Dress, in the German Way

Ingredients

Directions

Wash and scrape the carrots, then cut them into rings about ½ inch thick.
Melt the butter in a stewpan, then add the carrots, salt, nutmeg, parsley, and onion.
Toss the stewpan over the heat for a few minutes until the carrots are well coated in butter.
Pour in the stock and simmer gently until the carrots are nearly tender.
In another stewpan, melt a small piece of butter, then stir in the flour to make a roux.

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.

Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,062 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Carrot + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,424 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together21,601 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the onion

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

Parsnipfits better
Shallotfits better
Turnipfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, butter, nutmeg, parsley, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.