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To Stew Carrots

A simple stew of carrots simmered in broth, cream, and butter, finished with optional parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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To Stew Carrots

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 ↓

To Stew Carrots

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Half boil the carrots, then scrape and slice them into a stewpan.

Stew the carrots

  1. Add the weak broth, pepper, salt, and cream.

  2. Simmer until the carrots are very tender but not broken.

  3. If desired, add chopped parsley ten minutes before serving.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, mix the flour with the butter and warm it with the carrots.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Carrots
Form the main body of the dish and soften into tender pieces during simmering.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the stewing liquid.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid when mixed with butter and warmed through.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the flour blend smoothly into the liquid.

The step that matters

Simmer until the carrots are very tender but not broken. Gentle simmering softens the carrot's cell walls evenly, while a hard boil can make the pieces fall apart and turn mushy.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, pepper, cream, flour, butter):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Celeryfits less well
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, pepper, cream, flour, butter. 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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