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Puree of Carrots

A smooth carrot puree made by simmering carrots with water, salt, sugar, pepper, bread crumbs, and broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and veal are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,015 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Puree of Carrots

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Parboil the sliced carrots in 1½ pints of water for 10 minutes.

  2. Drain the carrots and cook gently until tender with salt, sugar, white pepper, bread crumbs, and broth.

Finish

  1. Simmer for 20 minutes.

  2. Put the mixture through a puree sieve.

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 + vealtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,015 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Bread + vealtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,056 recipes

    Shared aroma: cis-3-hexenol (green, grassy).

  4. Carrot + white peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. White pepper + vealtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 puree and provide natural sweetness and flavor.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and thicken the puree, giving it body.
Veal or chicken broth
Adds savory depth and moisture for cooking the carrots and crumbs.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the earthy flavor of the carrots.

The step that matters

Cook the carrots until fully tender. Heat softens the carrot cell walls. If they are undercooked, the puree will be grainy and may not pass smoothly through the sieve.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, sugar, bread, veal. 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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