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Vegetables, Fried, Marinade of

A sauce made by steaming onions and carrot with herbs, mace, butter, flour, stock, and vinegar, then straining.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Vegetables, Fried, Marinade of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the onions and carrot.

  2. In a stewpan, combine the onions, carrot, savory herbs, mace, and butter.

Cook the vegetables

  1. Cover and steam, shaking the pan occasionally, until the onions turn yellow.

  2. Dredge a little flour over the vegetables.

Finish the marinade

  1. Pour in the stock and vinegar.

  2. Add salt and pepper if the stock is not seasoned.

  3. Strain the liquid; it is ready for use.

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

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

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Carrot + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,029 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

Onions
Soften and sweeten as they steam, adding aroma to the marinade.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the vegetables cook gently in the pan.
Flour
Lightly thickens the liquid as it is added to the vegetables.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the marinade its sharp, tangy character.

The step that matters

Steam covered until the onions turn yellow. Gentle covered steaming softens the onions and draws out their sugars slowly. Higher heat or uncovered cooking can scorch the butter and sugars, turning them bitter instead of sweet.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, carrot, butter, vinegar, pepper, 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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