Name: Carrots with Ham or Bacon
Ingredients: 3 ounces butter; 1 ounce flour; ½ cup boiling stock or water; ½ pound ham or bacon, cut into ½-inch dice; pepper to taste; coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt') to taste; 1 bouquet garni; 1 clove garlic or 1 large onion; 6 large carrots, sliced

Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Carrots with Ham or Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

Melt the butter in a saucepan.
Mix in the flour and stir for 5 minutes.
Add the boiling stock or water, stirring with a wooden spoon.

Cook and serve

Stir in the diced ham or bacon, pepper, and salt if needed.
Add the bouquet garni and garlic or onion.
Add the sliced carrots and boil until tender.
Remove the onion and bouquet garni before serving.

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.

Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,873 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,555 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + carrottop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,029 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter: Enriches the base and carries flavour as the roux is made.
Flour: Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce when cooked with the butter.
Ham or bacon: Adds savoury, salty flavour to the sauce and carrots.
Carrots: Provide the main vegetable, softening as they boil until tender.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour in the butter. Stirring the flour into melted butter for a full 5 minutes cooks out its raw, starchy taste and lets it thicken the liquid evenly without lumps.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, ham, pepper, clove):

Shallotfits about as well
Leekfits about as well
Carrotthe original
Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, ham, pepper, clove. 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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Carrots with Ham or Bacon