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Dessert

Carrot Jam, to Imitate Apricot Preserve

A preserve made from young carrots, sugar, lemon, almonds, and optional brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,351 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Carrot Jam, to Imitate Apricot Preserve

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the carrots

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

  2. Place the carrots in a saucepan and cover with water. Simmer until perfectly soft.

  3. Beat the softened carrots through a sieve to create a pulp.

Make the jam

  1. Weigh the pulp and combine it in a preserving pan with the sugar. Boil for 5 minutes, stirring and skimming constantly.

  2. Once cooled, mix in the lemon rind, lemon juice, chopped almonds, and brandy.

  3. Transfer the jam into pots, cover well, and store in a dry place.

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 + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,351 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Carrot + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together416 recipes

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

  4. Almond + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,969 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Young carrots
Provide the bulk of the jam and its earthy, sweet base once softened into pulp.
Pounded sugar
Sweetens the jam and, with boiling, thickens the pulp into a preserve.
Lemons
Add acidity and bright flavour that balances the sweetness of the carrot and sugar.
Bitter almonds
Add a nutty, aromatic flavour that contrasts with the sweet carrot pulp.

The step that matters

Boiling the pulp with sugar. The pulp must be stirred and skimmed while it boils for 5 minutes. Sugar concentrates as water evaporates, and constant stirring prevents the sugar from scorching on the pan base and keeps the jam from sticking.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, almond, brandy. 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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