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To Stew Carrots

A simple dish of carrots stewed in stock with sugar and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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. Scrape the carrots and cut them into pieces about 1 inch long.

  2. Place the carrots in a saucepan and cover them with stock.

Stew

  1. Add the sugar and stew gently for about 1 hour until tender.

  2. Reduce the stock.

Finish and serve

  1. Add chopped parsley.

  2. Pour it over the carrots before serving.

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

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

  3. Sugar + parsleytop 39% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,535 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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 soften into tender pieces during slow stewing.
Stock
Provides the cooking liquid that moistens the carrots and carries flavour as it reduces.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the earthy flavour of the carrots.

The step that matters

Stew gently for about 1 hour. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer softens the carrots' cell walls evenly. A hard boil breaks the pieces apart and can leave them mushy on the outside and firm inside.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, sugar. 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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