Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Carrots X LA Maitre D’hutel
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the carrots until tender.
In a stewpan, melt a lump of butter and add a little flour until browned.
Add a little gravy to the butter and flour mixture.
Put the boiled carrots into the stewpan and let them stew gently until served.
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.
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Carrot + flourtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,029 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Carrot + buttertop 24% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,083 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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
Swap the carrot
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour):
- Shallotfits better
- Leekfits better
- Arrowrootfits better
- Carrotthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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