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Stewed Carrots

A simple dish of carrots simmered in water, butter, flour, and cream or milk.

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 and cook

  1. Wash and scrape the carrots, then cut them into strips.

  2. Place the carrots in a stewpan and cover with water.

  3. Add the salt and boil slowly until tender.

  4. Drain the carrots and return them to the pan.

Finish and serve

  1. Mix in the butter and flour, along with a little pepper and salt.

  2. Add enough cream or milk to moisten the mixture.

  3. Bring to a boil and serve 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.

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

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

  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. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 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
Provide the main vegetable bulk and natural sweetness that the dish is built around.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and giving the sauce a smooth body.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid and cream into a coating sauce that clings to the carrots.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, loosening the thickened mixture into a sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and flour to the carrots. Flour mixed into hot, wet carrots can clump if it is not blended well with the butter first. Stirring the flour and butter in evenly before adding cream or milk helps the sauce thicken smoothly rather than turning lumpy.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Carrotthe original

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