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Curried Carrots

A carrot dish simmered with onion, apple, curry powder, and stock, served with boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,601 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Curried Carrots

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the fat in a pan and fry the minced onion until pale brown.

  2. Sprinkle the curry powder and flour over the onion, stir, and moisten with the stock.

  3. Add the finely chopped apple and a pinch of salt, then let the sauce simmer for 20 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Cut the boiled carrots into even-sized pieces or dice, then add them to the sauce.

  2. Reheat for 10-15 minutes and serve on a hot dish with a border of boiled rice.

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 + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,477 recipes

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

  3. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together680 recipes

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

  5. Apple + ricetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,311 recipes

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

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 sweetness of the dish, softened by the simmering sauce.
Onion
Builds a savoury sweet base as it browns in the fat.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice flavour that defines the dish.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a sauce that coats the carrots.
Apple
Adds mild sweetness and acidity that balances the curry spices.
Boiled rice
Forms a starchy border that carries the curried carrots.

The step that matters

Frying the curry powder and flour. Curry powder and flour must be stirred into the hot onion and fat briefly before liquid is added. Frying them releases fat-soluble aroma compounds from the spices and cooks the raw flour taste out, while stirring prevents lumps when the stock goes in.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, onion, flour, rice):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, flour, rice. 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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