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To Stew Carrots

A simple carrot stew made with broth, cream, and butter, finished with optional parsley.

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

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 ↓

To Stew Carrots

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Half-boil the carrots, then scrape and slice them.

Stew

  1. Place the carrots in a stewpan with vegetable broth, white pepper, salt, and cream.

  2. Simmer until very tender but not broken.

  3. Stir in flour and butter, mix well, and let it simmer longer.

  4. Add chopped parsley a few minutes before serving, if desired.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Carrot + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,029 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
Form the main body of the dish and become tender and sweet as they simmer.
Vegetable broth
Provides the cooking liquid that gently softens the carrots and forms the sauce base.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the cooking liquid, giving a smoother mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid as it simmers, giving the sauce body.
Butter
Adds fat and a rounded flavour, and helps smooth the thickened sauce.

The step that matters

Stir in flour and butter, then simmer longer. Flour needs to cook in the hot liquid for a while to swell and thicken fully and lose its raw taste. Stirring well prevents lumps, and the sauce thickens as the starch gelatinises during simmering.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, white pepper, cream, 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.

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