Name: Fillets with Carrots and Shallots
Ingredients: fillets (about 2 inches square); 2 carrots; 6 shallots; 1 pint stock (from boiled head); 2 teaspoons sugar; 1 teaspoon salt; corn flour or tapioca (for thickening)

Why it works: Carrot and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 794 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Fillets with Carrots and Shallots

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Parboil the carrots and cut them into various shapes.

Stew and serve

In a pot, combine the fillets, carrots, shallots, and stock.
Add sugar and salt, then let it stew until the vegetables are soft and the meat absorbs their flavor.
Thicken the gravy with corn flour or tapioca.
Serve in an entree dish with the vegetables.

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.

Carrot + corntop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together794 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Carrot + shallottop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together803 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Shallot + corntop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together84 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Sugar + corntop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together7,168 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Carrot + sugartop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,211 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Fillets: Provide the main protein, which absorbs flavor from the stewing liquid as it cooks.
Carrots: Add sweetness and body to the stew once they are parboiled and softened.
Shallots: Soften during stewing and add a mild, sweet onion-like flavor to the gravy.
Stock: Forms the cooking liquid that carries flavor into the meat and vegetables.
Corn flour or tapioca: Thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy with a smoother, more body-filled texture.

The step that matters

Thickening the gravy. Starch must be added to simmering liquid and cooked until it thickens. Adding it too early or without enough heat can leave the gravy thin or cloudy, while adding it too late leaves a raw starchy taste.

Swap the shallot

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

Capsicumfits better
Parsnipfits better
Sweet potatofits better
Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, sugar, corn. 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.

Corn Fritters203 recipes

Carrot Soup134 recipes

Cream of Corn Soup50 recipes

Green Corn Soup46 recipes

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Fillets with Carrots and Shallots