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Carrots

Boiled carrots simmered in sweetened stock with butter, served as a side dish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Carrots

Why it works: Sugar and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98,233 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Carrots

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and boil

  1. Boil a saucepan of water.

  2. Add 2 tablespoons of coarse sea salt when the water is boiling.

  3. Add young carrots to the boiling water and cook for 20 minutes.

  4. Check tenderness with a fork; they should be tender all through.

  5. Boil for 30 to 45 minutes if they are older.

  6. Remove the carrots and rub them clean with a cloth.

  7. If older, wash, scrape, and cut them to resemble young carrots before boiling.

Glaze and serve

  1. Place boiled carrots in a stewpan.

  2. Cover with good stock.

  3. Add a piece of butter the size of a nut and sprinkle with 2 teaspoons of caster sugar.

  4. Boil in the stewpan until reduced to a glaze over the carrots.

  5. Remove from the stewpan 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. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Carrot + buttertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Carrot + sugartop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,211 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Carrots
The main vegetable; boiling softens them until they are tender all through.
Good stock
Liquid that reduces into a savoury glaze that coats the carrots.
Caster sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the reduced liquid turn into a glossy glaze.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the glaze a smooth, glossy finish.

The step that matters

Reducing the stock to a glaze. As the liquid evaporates, the sugar and butter concentrate into a glossy coating. Boiling too long can scorch the sugar and dry the carrots, so watch the pan closely.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter. 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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