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To Boil Carrots

A simple boiled carrot dish seasoned with salt, sugar, and beef broth or veal gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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To Boil Carrots

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 Boil Carrots

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the carrots

  1. Wash the carrots.

  2. Scrape the skin off lightly or pare them thinly.

  3. If the carrots are large, divide them.

  4. If the carrots are large, cut the thick parts into quarters.

  5. Rinse the carrots well.

Boil

  1. Place them in plenty of boiling salted water.

  2. Boil very young carrots for 20 to 30 minutes; full-grown ones for 1.5 to 2 hours.

  3. Drain the carrots.

Finish in broth

  1. Arrange them upright in a broad saucepan.

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

  3. Add salt to taste.

  4. Add a small teaspoon of sugar.

  5. Boil briskly for half an hour or longer if needed.

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 + 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. Sugar + beeftop 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
Their starch and natural sugars soften during boiling, giving a tender texture and sweet flavour.
Sugar
Adds a little sweetness that rounds out the savoury broth and the carrots' flavour.
Beef broth or veal gravy
Supplies savoury flavour and moisture as the carrots simmer and absorb it.

The step that matters

Boil very young carrots for 20 to 30 minutes; full-grown ones for 1.5 to 2 hours.. Cooking time depends on the carrot's maturity. Older carrots have tougher cell walls that need longer heat to soften, so undercooking leaves them firm while overcooking turns young carrots mushy.

Swap the carrot

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, beef. 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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