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To Stew Carrots

A carrot stew made with broth, cream, butter, flour, and optional parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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To Stew Carrots

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Stew Carrots

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the carrots

  1. Half boil the carrots, then scrape and slice them into a stewpan.

  2. Add the broth, pepper, salt, cream, and powdered sugar.

  3. Simmer until the carrots are very tender but not broken.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, rub flour with butter and warm it with the carrots.

  2. If desired, add chopped parsley 10 minutes 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.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 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 (in the method)
Are the main body of the dish, becoming tender as they simmer in the liquid.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the stewing liquid.
Flour
Rubbed with butter and warmed in, it thickens the stewing liquid slightly.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour, and helps the flour blend smoothly into the sauce.
Powdered sugar
Adds a little sweetness that balances the savoury broth and carrots.

The step that matters

Simmer until the carrots are very tender but not broken. Carrots need gentle, steady simmering to soften fully; a rolling boil can break the slices apart and cloud the liquid.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, cream, sugar, butter, flour):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

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