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Stewed Carrots

A dish of boiled carrots simmered in butter, sweet cream, pepper, salt, milk, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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. Cut the carrots lengthwise and boil until tender.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the sweet cream, pepper, and salt.

  2. Add a little milk and flour to thicken.

Combine and serve

  1. Pour the mixture over the carrots, stirring gently once or twice.

  2. Serve while hot.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Carrot + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,029 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Provide the main vegetable body and sweetness of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour through the sauce.
Sweet cream
Forms the creamy base of the sauce and adds richness.
Flour
Thickens the liquid by swelling with heat as the sauce cooks.

The step that matters

Thickening with flour. Flour must be cooked with liquid long enough to swell and lose its raw starch taste. Adding it too quickly or without stirring can create lumps, and under-cooking leaves a pasty flavour.

Swap the carrot

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, pepper, milk, 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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