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To Boil Carrots

Boiled carrots simmered in broth and served with brown gravy, parsley, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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To Boil Carrots

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 ↓

To Boil Carrots

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and scrape the carrots, removing any blemishes. Cut the tops into even lengths of about 2.5 inches and trim one end to a point.

Cook

  1. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and add the carrots. Boil for 45 minutes.

  2. Drain the carrots and arrange them upright in a broad saucepan. Pour in beef broth or veal gravy to half their height.

  3. Add salt and 1 teaspoon of sugar. Boil briskly for another 30 minutes or until tender.

Serve

  1. Serve the carrots upright, topped with thickened brown gravy mixed with 1 teaspoon of parsley and a little lemon juice, or with béchamel sauce.

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

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

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Carrot + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,351 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 recipes

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

  5. Beef + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,866 recipes

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

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 become tender and sweet as they cook.
Beef broth or veal gravy
Supplies savoury moisture and flavour to the carrots as they simmer.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that rounds out the savoury cooking liquid.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich gravy topping.

The step that matters

Boil briskly until tender. Carrots soften unevenly and can turn mushy if overcooked, so test them with a knife rather than relying only on the timer. Brisk boiling keeps the liquid moving so the carrots cook through evenly.

“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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