Name: Boiled Carrots
Ingredients: Carrots; Cream sauce; Coarse sea salt; Chopped parsley

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 ↓

Boiled Carrots

Ingredients

Carrots
Cream sauce
Coarse sea salt
Chopped parsley

Directions

Clean and scrape the carrots.
Drop them into boiling water and cook until tender.
Drain thoroughly, slice, and serve with cream sauce.
For stronger flavored varieties, parboil for 15-20 minutes, then finish cooking in fresh boiling water.

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.

Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,787 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sauce + parsleytop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,693 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Carrot + saucetop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,509 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Cream + parsleytop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,392 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).