Skip to main content
Main

To Stew Carrots

A stew of carrots simmered in broth and cream, finished with a butter‑flour roux and optional parsley.

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

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Stew Carrots

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the carrots

  1. Half boil the carrots.

  2. Scrape and slice the carrots into a stewpan.

Stew

  1. Add the broth, pepper, salt, cream, and powdered sugar.

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

  3. Rub a little flour with butter.

  4. Warm the flour-butter mixture with the carrots.

  5. Add chopped parsley 10 minutes 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.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 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 (in the method)
Form the main body of the dish and become tender as they simmer.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the broth.
Flour
Mixed with butter and warmed in, it thickens the stewing liquid.
Butter
Combined with flour to form a fat base that helps thicken the sauce and adds richness.
Broth
Forms the cooking liquid that gently simmers the carrots and carries the flavour.

The step that matters

Simmer until the carrots are very tender but not broken. Carrots cook through slowly in liquid; too much heat or time makes the slices fall apart and turn mushy, while undercooking leaves them firm and starchy.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cream, sugar, 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes