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Carrots, Stewed, German

Stewed carrots cooked with butter, broth, flour, chives, parsley, and optional peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Carrots, Stewed, German

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the carrot strips and cook softly for about 10 minutes.

  3. Stir in the flour to thicken the broth.

  4. Add the chopped chives or young onions and parsley a few minutes before serving.

  5. If desired, mix in the cooked green peas before serving.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Chive + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + peastop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Flour + chivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,168 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Carrot + chivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together419 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

Carrots
Form the main body of the dish and sweeten as they soften gently in butter.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a light sauce that coats the carrots.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the carrots soften without browning.
Meat broth
Provides the liquid base and savory flavor of the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour. Flour must be cooked into the melted butter and broth so it thickens smoothly; added directly to hot liquid without stirring it can clump into lumps.

Swap the peas

The recipe marks peas as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, butter, meat, flour, chive, parsley):

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, butter, meat, flour, chive, parsley. 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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