Name: To Stew Carrots Brown
Ingredients: 6 large carrots; 1 pint gravy; pepper; salt; 1 tablespoon mushroom ketchup; 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce; 2 tablespoons flour; 2 tablespoons butter

Why it works: Ketchup and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

To Stew Carrots Brown

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the carrots

Wash and scrape the carrots well.
Boil the carrots in water for 30 minutes.
Drain and cut each carrot into round balls.

Stew and serve

In a stewpan, combine the carrot balls with gravy, pepper, salt, mushroom ketchup, and Worcestershire sauce.
Simmer for 20 minutes.
Remove the carrots, pile them in the center of a dish.
Thicken the gravy with flour and butter, pour it over the carrots, 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.

Ketchup + saucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,099 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,555 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Carrot + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,796 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,580 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

Carrots: Provide the main body and sweetness of the dish as they soften during boiling and simmering.
Gravy: Supplies the liquid and savory base that the carrots absorb during simmering.
Flour: Thickens the gravy so it clings to the carrots instead of running off the dish.
Butter: Adds richness and smoothness to the thickened gravy.
Worcestershire sauce: Adds acidity and depth of savory flavor to the gravy.
Mushroom ketchup: Adds concentrated savory, umami flavor to the gravy.

The step that matters

Thicken the gravy with flour and butter. Flour must be cooked into the butter and gravy so it swells and thickens smoothly; adding it raw or in lumps leaves the sauce pasty or grainy.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, mushroom, ketchup, sauce, flour, butter):

Shallotfits better
Capsicumfits better
Chivefits about as well
Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, mushroom, ketchup, sauce, 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.

Carrot Soup134 recipes

Mushroom Soup60 recipes

Tomato Soup526 recipes

Brown Bread461 recipes

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To Stew Carrots Brown