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Carrots with White Sauce

A side dish of boiled carrots topped with a butter, sugar, and salt white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and meat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,594 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Carrots with White Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Scrape the carrots lightly and cut them into large dice or slices.

  2. Put the carrots into a pot with salted boiling water, using 1 teaspoon of salt for every quart of water.

  3. Boil until tender: young carrots for 30 minutes, old ones for 45 minutes.

  4. Drain the carrots and season with a little salt.

  5. Place them in a serving dish and pour white sauce over them.

  6. Alternatively, cut the carrots into dice before cooking, boil, and drain.

  7. Return the carrots to the pot, adding 1 tablespoon of butter, 1 teaspoon of sugar, ½ teaspoon of salt, and ½ cup of water or meat stock.

  8. Cook over high heat until the carrots absorb the seasonings and liquid.

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. Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Carrot + meattop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  5. 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
Carrots are the main vegetable, cooked until tender and then coated in the sauce or seasonings.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy coating to the carrots as they cook.
Sugar
Adds a touch of sweetness that balances the savory seasoning.

The step that matters

Returning the carrots to the pot with the seasonings. Cooking over high heat must be watched so the liquid reduces and the carrots absorb it without scorching the butter and sugar on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, meat. 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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