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Carrot Marmalade

A preserved carrot spread made with sugar and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Carrot Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the carrots

  1. Take carrots in September or October, trim ends, wash clean in warm water.

  2. Scrape carrots, cut into about 2‑inch pieces, discarding any decayed parts.

  3. Place carrots in a large pot with enough water to prevent burning, cover, and cook over moderate heat until soft.

  4. Mash the softened carrots through a coarse sieve.

Make the marmalade

  1. Measure an equal weight of loaf sugar to the carrot pulp, then cook over low heat, stirring continuously to evaporate excess moisture.

  2. Once thickened, let the marmalade cool, transfer to pots, cover with paper moistened in brandy, and seal with another layer.

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. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Carrot + brandytop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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
Provide the bulk, body and natural sweetness of the marmalade once cooked and mashed into pulp.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and, as it cooks down with the pulp, helps it thicken and preserve.
Brandy
Moistens the paper covering the pots, adding aroma and helping protect the surface.

The step that matters

Cooking the pulp with sugar until thickened. Stirring over low heat prevents scorching, since sugar and pulp can burn on the base of the pan. Evaporating excess moisture is what gives the marmalade its set and keeping quality.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy. 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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