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Carrots, Red Puree of

A smooth puree of boiled carrots, onions, and stock, enriched with butter, nutmeg, and sugar, served with stewed mutton cutlets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Carrots, Red Puree of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the carrots

  1. Wash and scrape the carrots, then cut the red part into thin slices.

  2. Boil the carrot slices for about 15 minutes until tender.

  3. Drain the carrots.

Make the puree

  1. Place the drained carrots in a saucepan with the onion, cloves, salt, pepper, and enough stock to cover.

  2. Boil gently until tender.

  3. Pass through a coarse sieve.

  4. In a stewpan, combine the carrot pulp with ½ cup of butter, nutmeg, sugar, and 1 cup of stock.

  5. Stir until thickened.

Serve

  1. Serve with stewed mutton cutlets.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  5. Carrot + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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 puree and supply its sweetness and colour.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the finished puree.
Stock
Provides liquid for cooking the carrots and loosening the puree.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that rounds out the carrot flavour.

The step that matters

Stir until thickened. Carrot pulp thickens as its liquid reduces and its starches set, so stirring keeps it from scorching on the base of the pan and gives an even, smooth texture.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, clove, pepper, butter, nutmeg, sugar. 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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