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Carrots, Stewed

A dish of carrots stewed with bacon rinds, sugar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Carrots, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Make the purée

  1. Cook bacon rinds in a pot.

  2. Add chopped carrots and cook gently until reduced to a pulp.

  3. Pass the mixture through a sieve or colander.

Season and serve

  1. Stir in sugar, coarse sea salt, and black pepper to taste.

  2. Reheat and serve with croutons on the side.

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 + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Carrot + sugartop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,211 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Sugar + peppertop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,401 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 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, once broken down, give it a thick, smooth texture.
Bacon rinds
Release fat and savory flavor into the pot as they cook, enriching the carrots.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that rounds out the savory bacon and the earthy carrot flavor.

The step that matters

Cook gently until reduced to a pulp. Low, gentle heat softens the carrot cell walls evenly and concentrates their natural sugars. Higher heat can scorch the sugars and the bottom of the pot before the carrots break down.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits about as well
  3. Carrotthe original
  4. Sweet potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, pepper. 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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