Name: Carrots.
Ingredients: good carrots; salt; sugar; beef broth or veal gravy; parsley; lemon juice

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 ↓

Carrots.

Ingredients

Directions

Select equal-sized carrots and cut the tops into 2.5-inch lengths, trimming one end to a point.
Boil the carrots in salted water for 45 minutes.
Drain the carrots and arrange them upright in a broad saucepan.
Pour in hot beef broth or veal gravy to half their height.
Add salt and 1 teaspoon of sugar, then boil briskly for 30 minutes or until tender.
Keep the carrots hot while thickening gravy with parsley and lemon juice, or serve with béchamel or white sauce.
Serve the carrots upright with the sauce poured over them.

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.

Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Carrot + lemontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,351 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Carrot + beeftop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,606 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beef + parsleytop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,866 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).