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Stewed Carrots

A simple stew of carrots simmered in milk with butter, flour, salt, pepper, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Stewed Carrots

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 ↓

Stewed Carrots

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Half boil the carrots.

  2. Scrape and cut the carrots into thick slices.

Stew

  1. Place the carrots in a stew pan and add enough milk to barely cover them.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and chopped parsley.

  3. Simmer until the carrots are tender but not broken.

  4. When nearly done, add the butter rolled in flour.

  5. Serve hot.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Form the main body of the dish and soften into a tender texture as they simmer.
Milk
Provides the liquid that gently cooks the carrots and forms the creamy sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the sauce feel smooth and full-bodied.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the milk into a light sauce when added with the butter near the end.

The step that matters

Adding the butter rolled in flour. Adding the flour-butter mixture near the end lets it thicken the milk without lumps. Adding it too early can scorch the milk or let the sauce thicken unevenly.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Carrotthe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, pepper, parsley, butter, flour. 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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