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Carrots a LA Flamande

A boiled carrot dish with butter, sugar, parsley, pepper, salt, water, egg yolk, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 a LA Flamande

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Blanch the carrots and rub off the skins.

Cook the carrots

  1. Place the carrots in a stewpan with butter, sugar, parsley, pepper, salt, and enough water to cover.

  2. Simmer for 15 to 20 minutes until tender, shaking the pan occasionally.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten egg yolk mixed with cream or milk.

  2. Serve very 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.

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. Parsley + peppertop 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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 when simmered.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and giving the carrots a glossy finish.
Egg yolk
Thickens the cream mixture into a smooth, lightly set sauce when stirred in off heat.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness, diluting the yolk so it blends into a smooth coating.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolk off the heat. Egg yolk thickens through gentle heat. If the pan is still boiling when it goes in, the yolk can scramble and turn grainy instead of creating a smooth, lightly set sauce.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, parsley, pepper, egg, cream):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, parsley, pepper, egg, cream. 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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