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To Roil Carrots

A boiled carrot dish simmered in beef or veal broth with salt and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,606 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Roil Carrots

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and scrape the carrots lightly, removing blemishes.

  2. Cut the tops of the carrots into even lengths of about 2.5 inches and point one end.

Cook

  1. Boil the carrots in plenty of salted water for 45 minutes.

  2. Drain the carrots and arrange them upright in a broad saucepan.

  3. Pour in hot beef broth or veal gravy to half their height.

  4. Add salt to taste and 1 teaspoon of sugar.

  5. Boil briskly for 30 minutes or longer.

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 + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  3. Beef + sugartop 37% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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 absorb flavour from the broth and sugar as they cook.
Beef broth or veal gravy
Adds savoury depth and moisture as the carrots simmer and reduce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the carrots brown lightly as the liquid reduces.

The step that matters

Boil briskly for 30 minutes or longer. Once the carrots sit in the broth, a brisk boil reduces the liquid into a glaze. Too gentle a simmer leaves them watery, while over-reduction can scorch the sugar on the pan.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, 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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