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Pickled Carrots

Pickled carrots are carrots preserved in cold vinegar with onion, bay leaves, and celery seed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Pickled Carrots

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scrape and wash the carrots in cold water.

  2. Cut the carrots into slices crosswise.

Cook the carrots

  1. Boil the sliced carrots in a kettle of boiling water until tender, about 45 minutes.

  2. Drain the carrots and place them in a jar.

Pickle

  1. Pour cold vinegar over the carrots.

  2. Add the slice of onion, bay leaves, and celery seed.

  3. Let the pickled carrots sit for 12 hours before using.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Vinegar + celerytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,627 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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 supply the firm, tender texture once cooked.
Cold vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the carrots their tangy, pickled flavor and helps preserve them.
Celery seed
Adds a mild, warm, savory aroma that complements the carrots and vinegar.

The step that matters

Boil until tender, not beyond. Carrots boiled past tender lose their structure and turn mushy, so they will not hold their slices in the jar. Checking for tenderness with a fork during the roughly 45 minutes of boiling prevents overcooking.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, vinegar, celery):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, vinegar, celery. 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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