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Stewed Carrots

A simple carrot stew simmered in broth with cream, butter, 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. Scrape the carrots and soak them in cold water for at least 30 minutes.

  2. Boil the whole carrots for 45 minutes until tender, then drain and slice into ¼‑inch thick rounds.

Stew and finish

  1. In a saucepan, combine the sliced carrots with the broth, salt, and pepper.

  2. Stew gently for 30 minutes.

  3. Before serving, add the cream or milk and butter rolled in flour, then bring to a boil.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Carrot + vealtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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
Form the dish's main body and sweetness as they soften through cooking.
Broth
Provides the cooking liquid and savory flavor that the carrots absorb while stewing.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the finished stew.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and with flour helps thicken the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when rolled with butter and stirred in before boiling.

The step that matters

Bringing the cream or milk to a boil. Once dairy is added, boiling it hard can cause it to curdle or separate. Adding the flour-and-butter mixture first helps stabilize and thicken the sauce, so bring it up gently and keep it from scorching.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, cream, 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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