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Stewed Carrots

A simple carrot stew cooked in salted water, finished with butter, flour, parsley, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 the carrots

  1. Wash, clean, and scrape the carrots.

  2. Cut them into quarters lengthwise and cover with enough salt water to float them.

  3. Cook for 20 to 30 minutes until tender.

Finish the sauce

  1. Add the butter rolled in flour, chopped parsley, and a little milk.

  2. Stir into the boiling liquid and season with salt and pepper to taste.

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. 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 + milktop 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
The main vegetable, cooked until tender and sweet in the stewing liquid.
Flour
Rolled into the butter, it thickens the liquid into a light sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and helping the sauce feel smooth.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the butter and flour into the boiling liquid. Flour thickens only when heated, and if it is dropped in lumps it stays grainy. Stirring while the liquid boils disperses the flour so the sauce thickens evenly and smoothly.

Swap the carrot

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

  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 butter, flour, parsley, milk, pepper. 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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