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Carrots and Irish Potatoes

A simple stew of diced carrots and Irish potatoes cooked with butter, salt, and white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and potato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,107 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Carrots and Irish Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Stew the vegetables

  1. Dice the carrots and stew them for 15 minutes.

  2. Add the diced potatoes and do not stir.

  3. Stew until tender, using very little water.

Finish and serve

  1. Add butter and salt to taste.

  2. Pour white sauce over the vegetables, cook for 3 minutes, and serve.

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. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Carrot + saucetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,509 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Carrot + buttertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
Hold their shape while stewing and add natural sweetness as they soften.
Potatoes
Their starch softens and slightly thickens the stew liquid as they cook.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavor and gives the finished stew a richer taste.
White sauce
Coats the vegetables with a creamy layer that adds body and mild richness.

The step that matters

Add the diced potatoes and do not stir. Stirring breaks the potato pieces and releases their starch, which makes the stew gummy. With very little water, the potatoes can also stick to the pot and scorch, so leaving them undisturbed lets them cook through in place.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, butter, sauce):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Onionfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, sauce. 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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