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Stewed Carrots

A dish of boiled carrots simmered in butter, cream, salt, cayenne pepper, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Stewed Carrots

Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Carrots

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the carrots

  1. Boil the carrots until tender.

  2. Slice the carrots very thin.

  3. Place the sliced carrots in a saucepan.

  4. Add the butter to the carrots.

Stew the carrots

  1. In a separate bowl, stir together the salt, cayenne pepper, and cream.

  2. Pour the cream mixture over the carrots.

  3. Let them stew for 15 minutes.

  4. Transfer the carrots to a vegetable dish.

Finish with egg yolks

  1. Bring the remaining cream in the saucepan to a boil.

  2. Stir in the beaten egg yolks.

  3. Pour the egg yolk mixture over the carrots.

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 + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Pepper and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Carrots
Form the bulk of the dish and give it its main texture and sweetness.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and smoothing the texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, helping the carrots stew softly and coat the dish.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream mixture through gentle heat, giving the sauce body and richness.

The step that matters

Stirring in the beaten egg yolks. Egg yolks can scramble if the cream is too hot or boiling when they go in. Adding them off the heat or with the cream only just off the boil lets them thicken smoothly into a sauce.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, cream, egg):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, cream, egg. 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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