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Stewed Carrots

A dish of carrots simmered in stock with milk, butter, flour, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Stewed Carrots

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 ↓

Stewed Carrots

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the carrots

  1. Scrape and boil whole carrots for 45 minutes.

  2. Drain and cut into ½‑inch cubes.

Cook in the stock

  1. In a saucepan, add enough weak stock to cover the carrot cubes.

  2. Cook the carrots in the stock for 20 minutes or until tender.

Finish the sauce

  1. Add 2 tablespoons of milk, 1 tablespoon of butter cut into 1 tablespoon of flour, salt, and pepper.

  2. Simmer for 5 minutes and serve.

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

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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, which softens and becomes sweeter as it cooks slowly.
Weak stock
Cooking liquid that tenderizes the carrots and carries savory flavor into the dish.
Milk
Adds richness and a creamy body to the cooking liquid.
Butter
Adds fat, giving the sauce a smoother mouthfeel and richer flavor.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a sauce that clings to the carrots.

The step that matters

Combining the flour and butter into the liquid. Flour thickens only when it is spread evenly through the liquid and heated; dropped in as lumps, it sets as clumps. Simmering afterward lets the thickened sauce cook through and lose its raw flour taste.

Swap the carrot

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, flour, 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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