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Carrots Maitre D'hotel

Carrots cooked in a butter and broth sauce with Allemande sauce, parsley, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Carrots Maitre D'hotel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut each carrot in half and place them in lightly salted water.

  2. Boil until three-quarters done, then drain.

Glaze and serve

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and add the broth, salt, pepper, and sugar.

  2. Add the carrots and cook over brisk heat until moisture is reduced.

  3. Stir in the Allemande sauce and chopped parsley, then toss well 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.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 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. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender as they are boiled and then glazed.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the carrots a glossy coating.
Broth
Supplies liquid that reduces into a savory glaze around the carrots.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the glaze brown lightly as the liquid reduces.
Allemande sauce
Adds body and creamy richness to the finished glaze.
Parsley
Adds fresh, herbal aroma and a bright finish.

The step that matters

Reducing the moisture over brisk heat. Cooking until the liquid has reduced, but not longer, lets it cling to the carrots as a glaze. If it cooks too long, the butter and sugar can scorch and the carrots dry out.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Carrotthe original
  4. Mustardfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, sugar, sauce, parsley. 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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