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Rutabaga and Acrrot Butter

A sweet and spiced butter made from boiled rutabaga and carrot, sweetened with sugar and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Rutabaga and Acrrot Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil equal parts of rutabagas and carrots until tender.

  2. Drain and pass through a colander.

  3. Add a little water to each gallon of the mixture.

Cook

  1. Stir in salt, cinnamon, cloves, sugar, vinegar, and flour.

  2. Cook slowly for 20 minutes.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Rutabaga + turniptop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together66 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Rutabaga + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together169 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rutabagas
Form the bulk of the purée, adding earthy body and a mild, slightly sweet flavour.
Carrots
Add sweetness, smoothness, and colour to the purée as it cooks down.
Sugar
Sweetens the butter and helps thicken it as it cooks down into a spread.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the sweetness.
Flour
Thickens the mixture so it sets to a spreadable butter.

The step that matters

Cook slowly for 20 minutes. Sugar-rich purées scorch easily on the bottom of the pan. Gentle heat and regular stirring let moisture evaporate evenly and keep the flour from clumping, so the butter thickens smoothly.

Swap the rutabaga

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, carrot, cinnamon, clove, sugar, vinegar, flour):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Rutabagathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, carrot, cinnamon, clove, sugar, vinegar, flour. 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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