Carrots
It’s the mid-1950s. My little brother looks at the sliced
boiled carrots on his plate with loathing. Mum tries to insist he eats them up.
N.B.G. Dad tries to insist he eats them up. N.B.G.
Stalemate.
Carrots were
a fixture on our dinner plates in New Zealand at that era. Meat and three veg
was the norm, scarcely varied unless you were Catholic, when you might luck out
and get chips with your fish on a Friday. Carrots were plentiful and cheap,
which is why they were a staple. Ours weren’t always boiled: Mum acquired a
handy two-layer pot fairly early on: the potatoes sat in the bottom in very
large chunks and were boiled for about forty minutes, while the sliced carrots
and one or two other vegetables, all too often cabbage,
sat in the dinky perforated containers that went into the top part, and steamed
for forty minutes. Gee, you reckon that’d result in dead carrots? You’re right.
Unfortunately boiling or steaming to death were
the standard ways to cook carrots for most of the 20th century in the countries
that had inherited the British approach to food. Otherwise, you diced them and
put them in a stew, a casserole or a soup. The vegetables and meat were perfectly
acceptable but the home cooks of Australia and New Zealand, faithfully following
the tradition they’d inherited, avoided the use of herbs almost entirely. The results
were nourishing but not exciting.
Good For Your Eyesight? The Great Carrot
Myth
Carrots were not
only cheap and plentiful, they were good for your eyesight. We all believed this,
back then. Is it true? Well, only sort of. Most of the online gurus quote, whether
or not directly, from an
excellent article on Smithsonian.com.
It tells us that carrots do contain a lot
of Vitamin A (in the form of beta carotene), and this is good for eye health.
But they won’t help you see in the dark, which was the full version of the popular
myth when I was a kid in the later 1940s and 1950s. Our suburban street lighting
was pretty poor, so it was a pity that it wasn’t true!
The big carrot myth that they improve
night-sight dates in fact from a British propaganda campaign during World War
II. The British developed a form of radar early in the war (there’s an episode
of Foyle’s War based around it, if you want an easy introduction!) and
to hide the real reason why British RAF pilots were having such success shooting
down German planes during the blackouts of the Blitz, the Ministry of
Information put about a story that this was down to eating carrots.
Because there was a huge food shortage in Britain
during the War, any story that could promote the consumption of something that
was home-grown and easy to grow was good news. The Ministry of Food leapt on
this one:
“Whether or not
the Germans bought it, the British public generally believed that eating
carrots would help them see better during the citywide blackouts.
Advertisements with the slogan ‘Carrots keep you healthy and help you see in
the blackout’ (…) appeared everywhere.
“But the carrot craze didn’t stop
there—according to the Food Ministry … the war could be won on the ‘Kitchen
Front’ if people changed what they ate and how they prepared it. In 1941, Lord
Woolton, the Minister of Food, emphasized the call for self-sustainability in
the garden:
“‘This is a
food war. Every extra row of vegetables in allotments saves shipping. The
battle on the kitchen front cannot be won without help from the kitchen garden.
Isn’t an hour in the garden better than an hour in the queue?’
“That same year, the British Ministry of Food
launched a Dig For Victory Campaign which introduced the cartoons ‘Dr. Carrot’ and
‘Potato Pete’, to get people to eat more of the vegetables (bread and
vegetables were never on the ration during the war). Advertisements encouraged
families to start ‘Victory Gardens’ and to try new recipes using surplus foods
as substitutes for those less available.”
(K. Annabelle Smith. “A WWII Propaganda Campaign
Popularized the Myth That Carrots Help You See in the Dark”, smithsonian.com,
August 13, 2013)
The myth endured.
Though I have to add, my little brother didn’t
appear to believe a word of it! A blank look was all poor old Dad got when he
tried urging the despised carrots on him as sure to make him see in the dark.
Things have improved on the carrots scene since
we ate them very dead believing they’d help our eyesight tremendously. Let’s look
at a bit of the history of the invaluable carrot through the recipes.
Carrot Salads and Dips
Modern
recipes for dips and salads using carrots are generally lovely. But they’re mostly
not from the British tradition that New Zealanders and Australians grew up with
throughout most of the 20th century. This first recipe suggests why!
How bad could it get? The nadir of the British cookery tradition
Just to show
you how bad it could get, here’s what an early Australian cookbook presents as
a salad. It’s based almost entirely on leftovers, including leftover carrot.
Carrot Salad
2
or 3 Cold Boiled Carrots; 1/2 lb. Cold
Boiled Mutton;
1
stalk Celery; 6 Capers; Half a teaspoonful Parsley;
Salad
Dressing
Cut up some cold boiled mutton into small
pieces and lay them in a salad bowl. Mince up the celery and capers and strew
over it, then pour over the dressing. Slice up the cold carrots and lay them on
top; garnish with the chopped parsley, and serve.
(Philip E. Muskett and Mrs H. Wicken. The
Art of Living in Australia, by Philip E. Muskett; Together With Three Hundred
Australian Cookery Recipes and Accessory Kitchen Information by Mrs. H. Wicken.
London, Eyre and Spottiswoode, [1894])
I’d call this
dead food. More or less the nadir of British cooking, yep, though I’ll concede
that Mrs Wicken does her best by adding the capers. Unfortunately it represents
an attitude that was to prevail for over half a century thereafter. It was very
cheap, though: Mrs Wicken costs it at “5 1/2d.”, fivepence halfpenny. It’s all
too easy to envisage the desperate housewives of the time pouncing on this recipe
and serving it up without the capers because their store cupboard didn’t
provide such luxuries.
Okay, things
have got a lot better, and here are some really nice recipes.
Carrot Dip (Yoghurtlu
Havuc)
A Turkish recipe.
6
or 7 carrots; 1 clove garlic;
200g
creamy Greek style yoghurt;
2
teaspoons olive oil; pinch of salt
[To
garnish]: black olives; extra olive oil
1. Coarsely grate the carrots and cook in a
pan with olive oil until just softened. Remove from pan and set aside to cool.
2. Meanwhile, grate the garlic into the
yoghurt, add salt and mix well.
(By Esma Koroglu, SBS)
This is one
of the easiest Middle Eastern dips but also one of the nicest. Lots of
variations exist: some just boil and mash the carrots instead of cooking them
in oil. Another variation is to add the garlic to the carrot mixture after it
has started cooking, and cook them gently together. This avoids a raw garlic
taste.
I’ve got lots
of recipes for carrot salads but the ones below appeal the most. They’re in roughly
chronological order:
From France in the 1970s:
This is my version
of a classic French carrot salad I had in Paris in 1973. The dressing is very
basic; if you like, add some Dijon mustard and make a proper vinaigrette.
Salade de carottes râpées
(Grated Carrot Salad)
4
large carrots; 1 tablespoon lemon juice
or vinegar;
3
tablespoons olive oil; pinch of salt;
coarsely
ground black pepper
Wash, peel and grate carrots. Add oil and
lemon juice or vinegar.
Toss salad lightly. Season to taste with salt
and plenty of coarsely ground black pepper and toss again.
–Serves
4.
1980s Downunder: things are improving
By the later
1980s a limpish carrot salad dotted with sultanas and dressed with goodness-knew-what
out of a bottle had become a staple for large gatherings, family restaurants
and foodcourts.
If you make this tasty salad from 1980, especially
if you give it the zing of fresh mint, you’ll see what those rather sad offerings
were meant to be!
Carrot Salad
500
g prepared carrots; 150 g raisins [or sultanas];
1 orange;
1 tsp finely-chopped marjoram or mint;
8
even-sized lettuce leaves
Dressing:
2
tb lemon juice; 2 tb salad oil; 1/2 tsp sugar;
1/2
tsp salt; freshly-ground black pepper
Pour boiling water over the raisins. Drain.
Squeeze the juice from the orange. Pour over the raisins and leave for an hour.
Grate carrots into a bowl. Add the marjoram,
raisins and orange juice. Mix well. Combine dressing ingredients and pour over
the salad. Toss. Fill each lettuce leaf with the carrot salad and arrange on a
platter.
–Serves
8
(Mary Browne, Helen Leach & Nancy
Tichborne. The Cook’s Garden: For Cooks Who Garden and Gardeners Who Cook.
Wellington, [N.Z.], A.H. & A.W. Reed, 1980)
Getting there: 1990s: tangy ingredients
This one is
an American offering, where the presence of lime juice and coriander probably
indicates the growing Mexican influence on local cuisine, as ingredients that were
typically only Tex-Mex began to be used in other recipes:
Carrot Salad with Lime and
Cilantro
4 medium carrots; 1 tablespoon fresh lime
juice;
1/8 teaspoon finely grated fresh lime zest;
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh cilantro
[coriander] leaves;
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
Garnish:
fresh cilantro sprigs
Finely shred carrots and in a bowl toss
together with remaining ingredients and salt and pepper to taste.
Serve salad garnished with cilantro.
–Serves
4
(from Gourmet magazine, April 1999, Epicurious.com)
Into the 21st century…
A huge range
of carrot salads is now available to the home cook. You can combine them with
almost anything to make a tasty salad.
Carrots with capsicums:
I’ve used both
fresh and cooked yoghurt in my Middle-Eastern-inspired carrots and capsicum salad,
which combines a spicy and tangy undertaste with sweet vegetables. It will keep
well in the fridge overnight.
Tangy Capsicum and Carrot Salad
2 large red capsicums; 2 large carrots;
1 teaspoon garlic paste; 1/2 cup yoghurt or more;
1 teaspoon cumin powder; 1 1/2 teaspoons coriander powder;
2 tablespoons water; 2 tablespoons olive oil
(1) Peel the carrots and slice them about 5
mm thick. Wash and deseed the capsicums; slice into pieces about 4 cm long and
2 wide.
(2) Heat a lidded frying pan or electric
frypan to medium.
(3) Add the olive oil and spices and stir to
combine; then add the vegetables. Stir gently to coat with the spices and fry
for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
(4) Add the garlic paste. Cook, stirring, for
half a minute.
(5) Turn the heat down to medium-low and add
half of the yoghurt. Stir in well and add the water.
(6) Cover and cook for 5 to 8 minutes or
until the carrots are just tender.
(7) Remove the lid, turn to high and cook, stirring,
until the liquid has dried up.
(8) Remove from the heat and stir in the
remaining 1/4 cup of the yoghurt. Quickly turn into a serving dish before the
second lot of yoghurt can start to split. Add a little more yoghurt if it needs
more dressing.
(9) Allow to cool (in the refrigerator, if
liked) before serving at room temperature.
Enough for 4 as a side dish, or for 2 as a
lunch dish with Lebanese bread.
Part of the
secret of the dish is the garlic paste. However, it has a tendency to burn, so
watch it carefully when you add it. You will see that the cooked yoghurt “splits”
(separates). This gives the dish a slight cheesy taste and a grainier texture
than if you just added all the yoghurt after cooking. You could do it that way
if you prefer: it’s still nice, but rather different.
Carrots with coriander:
Here is my
translation of a French version of a Moroccan recipe for a cooked carrot salad.
The instructions say to put it in the fridge until you’re ready to serve it,
but this doesn’t mean it should be left overnight, it’s not a keeper.
Salade de carottes à la marocaine
4 carrots;
1 tablespoon coriander leaves;
1 teaspoon
cumin powder; 1 or 2 cloves garlic;
juice
1/2 lemon or 1 tablespoon vinegar;
olive
oil; salt & pepper
1. Peel the carrots and slice into rounds.
2. Cook in salted water for 15 minutes.
3. Drain and put in a serving dish. Mix together
the olive oil, lemon juice (or vinegar), add salt and pepper.
4. Sprinkle this dressing over the carrots and
add the garlic, finely chopped or grated, sprinkle with cumin powder and chopped
coriander.
6. Mix well and put in the fridge until ready
to serve.
(Cuisine
marocaine),
Carrots with potatoes:
The next is
my cumin-flavoured adaptation of a recipe from Better Homes and Gardens
(television programme). The original used caraway seeds and boiled them with the
vegetables. It also used finely sliced radishes, capers (added with the
olives), and hard-boiled eggs as a garnish.
Tunisian-Style Potato &
Carrot Salad
5
medium-sized waxy potatoes; 2 or 3 large
carrots;
1/4
cup black olives; 1 1/2 teaspoons ground
cumin;
freshly
ground black pepper;
3-4
tablespoons vinaigrette
dressing
Wash the potatoes and chop into chunks about
1-1/2 cm square. Peel the carrots and chop into pieces about the same size. Boil
or steam together until tender.
Drain the vegetables. While still hot, mix
them and cumin powder together in the salad bowl. Add the vinaigrette with a
good grinding of black peppercorns and mix
gently. Then allow to cool.
Add about 1/4 cup well drained, pitted
Spanish black olives. Mix gently.
The top may be decorated with a little “smokey”
paprika & more ground cumin if liked.
–Serves
4. Note: Use Spanish black olives, not Kalamata. There is no need to add salt,
as the vinaigrette
dressing contains salt.
Carrots with quinoa:
This Australian
salad which combines carrots with quinoa comes from a recipe for “Dukkah
Chicken and Quinoa Salad”.
Quinoa Salad
1 cup quinoa, rinsed; 2 medium carrots, peeled, diced;
2 green [i.e. spring] onions, finely sliced;
1/3 cup finely chopped fresh flat-leaf
parsley leaves;
1/4 cup shredded fresh mint leaves;
1/3 cup orange juice; 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
Place quinoa and 2 cups cold water in a
saucepan over high heat. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low. Simmer,
covered, for 10 minutes or until water has absorbed and quinoa is tender.
Rinse. Drain.
Meanwhile, lightly spray a frying pan with
oil. Heat over medium-high heat. Cook carrot, stirring, for 5 minutes or until just
tender. Transfer to a bowl.
Combine quinoa, orange juice, parsley, mint,
onion, oil and carrot in a bowl. Season with pepper. Toss to combine.
(Taste.com.au)
Carrots with vinegar and hot oil:
Sounds weird?
Well, its history certainly is. You can read all about how “Morchovka” or “Korean
Carrots” became a staple in the former Soviet bloc countries in the Gastro Obscura
article “Morkovcha”,
by Susie Armitage.
Although it was invented by expatriate Koreans,
it is not in fact a dish originating in Korea!
Soviet-Korean Carrot Salad
- “Morkovcha”
Morkovcha is essentially a type of kimchi made
with ingredients that were readily available in Central Asia: carrots, vinegar,
onions, and garlic. It’s a crisp, refreshing salad that goes well with Central
Asian food, and is popular all across the former Soviet Union. It’s also very
easy to make.
This recipe is from Natalia Kim’s website
za100le.ru. Her Youtube channel has lots of Russian and Central Asian video recipes.
Carrots; Vinegar;
Onions; Garlic; Salt;
Coriander
powder; Black pepper; Red pepper;
Sesame
seeds
1. Cut the carrots into long, thin slices. I
use a julienne slicer for this purpose. Salt the carrots, add vinegar, mix
well, and let this sit for about half an hour.
2. The carrots will have given off juices.
Drain the juice from the carrots, then add the other spices to taste. Make sure
not to add too much coriander powder, as it can give the resulting salad a
gritty texture. Mix well.
3. Chop up some garlic and put it in a pile
on top of the salad.
4. Dice a small onion, fry until brown in oil,
then pour the onion and hot oil over the garlic. Many Russian-influenced salads
have this last step of pouring hot oil over the salad. You should hear a
sizzling noise as the oil hits. Mix everything well.
The salad is complete! Enjoy!
(Silk Road Chef, January 13, 2015)
The Gastro Obscura
article suggests coriander leaves to garnish, as in the picture. You could also
use parsley or another green herb such as mint.
As you can see, the “Silk Road Chef” hasn’t
given quantities, but it doesn’t really matter, as the carrots are to be drained.
I’d say try 1-2 tablespoons of vinegar per carrot until they are well soaked but
not floating in liquid.
Carrot Soups
Most carrot
soups are served hot, but here is a cold one for the summer:
Iced Carrot And Orange Soup
Simple but sophisticated.
500 g new, prepared carrots; 4 oranges;
1 small
onion; 600 ml chicken stock;
1
tsp sugar; 2 tb butter; salt to taste
Slice carrots thinly. Peel onion and chop
finely. Melt the butter in a saucepan and sauté the carrots and onions until
soft but not brown.
Stir in the stock and sugar and simmer until
the carrots are very tender.
Put soup through a blender or fine sieve.
Add the strained juice of 4 oranges. Chill
for several hours.
–Serves
6.
(Mary Browne, Helen Leach & Nancy
Tichborne. The Cook's Garden: For Cooks Who Garden and Gardeners Who Cook.
Wellington, [N.Z.], A.H. & A.W. Reed, 1980)
Now for the hot soups. The first one is a very
early Australian recipe which is pretty much the basic recipe that would have
been followed by home cooks for over half a century. But you’ll note that the soup
has a good stock base and does not eke the carrots out with potato or, worse, pumpkin,
two amendments which crept in very quickly.
Very typically
of what was to prevail as standard British-based home cooking, there is a noticeable
absence of herbs. Some thyme and a bit of sage would improve the mixture greatly,
I feel:
Carrot Soup
6
Carrots; 1 oz. Butter; Sugar, Salt, and
Pepper;
3
quarts Bone Stock
Time—One
Hour.
Scrape and slice up the carrots and put them
into a saucepan with the butter.
Sprinkle over a teaspoonful each of salt and
sugar and a quarter of a teaspoonful of pepper; turn them about in butter for
five minutes, pour over the boiling stock and boil for an hour.
Rub through a sieve, return to the saucepan and
boil up, season to taste, and serve very hot.
(Philip E. Muskett and Mrs H. Wicken. The
Art of Living in Australia, by Philip E. Muskett; Together With Three Hundred
Australian Cookery Recipes and Accessory Kitchen Information by Mrs. H. Wicken.
London, Eyre and Spottiswoode, [1894])
Mrs Wicken
gives its total cost as 3 1/2d. (threepence-halfpenny), which makes it a very
cheap soup indeed. The home cook in those days made her own stock (the quantity
here is costed at a halfpenny); but even if we have to buy our stock in a packet
today, it’s still a cheap and tasty soup.
I was amused to find a very similar recipe,
dated 2006, on the big Australian cookery website, BestRecipes.com. Here it is,
for interest, though I rather think the changes are those we’d all make, these
days!
Carrot Soup
A thick vegetable soup that is nice and easy.
6-8
large carrots, sliced; 3 large onions,
chopped;
1
teaspoon garlic, minced or chopped;
2
cups stock (vegetable or chicken); [oil];
black
pepper; pinch of salt
[Garnish]:
Chopped parsley or coriander
Heat a small amount of oil in a large pot
over medium heat.
Add onions, garlic and carrots. Cook until
onions are soft and carrots are cooked (about 10-15 minutes).
Add stock and cook over low heat for about 40
minutes. Add pepper and salt to taste.
Puree in a food processor or blender (the
soup should be quite thick).
To serve, garnish with parsley or coriander.
Recipe notes: You can make the soup less
thick by adding more stock.
(By alisonhume, BestRecipes, 2006),
This last soup is kind of the apotheosis of
the carrot soup! Heidi Swanson, who writes the 101 Cookbooks website, is
an inspirational modern vegetarian cook who makes use of all sorts of interesting
things she has to hand. (Oddly enough, I never seem to have them to hand!) I
love her recipes but I don’t always manage to get all the ingredients. However,
this one is quite a simple recipe, as she claims, and the garnishes, usually a large
feature of her dishes, are optional:
A Simple Carrot Soup
2 pounds carrots, peeled and chopped -
1/2-inch chunks;
1 lemon or lime [juice of]; 1 onion, chopped;
1 14-ounce can full-fat coconut milk;
scant 1 tablespoon red curry paste, or to taste;
1 1/2 cups / 360 ml of water, or to cover;
2 tablespoons unsalted butter or extra-virgin
coconut oil;
1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt, or to taste;
To serve (topping ideas): micro greens;
cilantro, chopped; toasted almonds; chile oil
In a large soup pan over medium-high heat add
the butter and onion. Stir until the onions are well-coated, and allow to sauté
until translucent, a few minutes.
Stir in the curry paste, and then the
carrots. Allow to cook another minute or two, and then add the coconut milk,
salt, and water, adding more water to cover if needed.
Allow to simmer until the carrots are tender,
10-15 minutes, and then puree using a blender or hand blender until the soup is
completely silky smooth.
This next part is important (with any
soup)—make any needed adjustments. Add more water if the consistency needs to
be thinned out a bit. After that taste for salt, adding more if needed.
I also like to season this soup with a great
big squeeze or lemon or lime juice.
Serve topped with whatever you have on hand—I
like it with a little something crunchy (almonds), and a lot of something green
(micro greens & cilantro [coriander leaves]).
–Serves 4.
(Heidi Swanson. 101 Cookbooks: A Natural
Foods Recipe Journal)
Carrot Sides and Mains
Many cuisines
serve cooked carrot dishes as side dishes, but they can also be made into a
main dish. Here are some that I like.
Simply carrots:
“Roasted”
veggies are a fad at the moment. On the TV foodie programmes, they always seem
to emerge from the oven burnt. You can keep ’em. Here’s a much nicer oven dish
for carrots, which makes a simple but delicious side. It’s sad that the British
didn't adopt some of the ideas from this recipe book, which was on the market in
1900!
Carote al forno
2
lbs [1 kg] medium-sized carrots; stock;
thyme; butter; salt & pepper
Trim 2 lbs medium-sized carrots, scrape them
and put in a pan of cold water to boil. Parboil for 10 mins, drain and lay in a
buttered oven dish.
Half-cover with stock, sprinkle with salt,
pepper, pinch of thyme and small pieces of butter.
Braise in a rather hot oven, basting from
time to time, till cooked.
(Janet Ross (1842-1927). Leaves From Our
Tuscan Kitchen, or How To Cook Vegetables. 2nd ed., London, J.M. Dent &
Co., 1900)
Eighty years later, three New Zealand cooks
who had largely (though not wholly) liberated themselves from the British tradition
of dead veg offer this nice way to glaze carrots:
Glazed Carrots
500
g prepared carrots; 4 tablespoons butter;
4
tablespoons chicken stock (or water);
1
tablespoon sugar; 1/4-1/2 teaspoon salt
Leave carrots whole if tiny or cut into 1 cm
slices. Simmer in melted butter, stock, sugar and salt until tender. Most of
the liquid will be absorbed. Drain and serve.
–Serves 4-6
(Mary Browne, Helen Leach & Nancy
Tichborne. The Cook's Garden: For Cooks Who Garden and Gardeners Who Cook.
Wellington, [N.Z.], A.H. & A.W. Reed, 1980)
A simpler way
to glaze is to boil or steam the carrots, cut to the desired size, then add a
little honey or sugar, lemon juice and butter to the drained pan, and roll them
around on a low heat until well covered.
For a more self-indulgent but still simple
side dish, here’s a French classic approach. It’s my translation of a recipe I cut
out of Elle magazine in 1973:
Carottes à la crème
2 kg
carrots; 150 g thick cream; 80 g butter;
parsley or chervil; salt, pepper
Peel the carrots and shape them so as they’re
all the same size.
Put the carrots into a fairly large oven
dish, with just enough water to cover, the butter, salt and pepper.
Cook them uncovered and on a fairly high heat
until the water has dried up, leaving just the butter.
The carrots should be cooked by this time.
Now add the cream, lower the heat, cover the
dish and allow to simmer on a very low heat.
If the cream is still runny when the dish is
ready to serve, turn the heat up so that the cream coats the carrots.
Serve scattered with finely chopped parsley
or chervil.
–Serves
6.
(Elle. 1973)
Many French
recipes use chervil. It’s a much more delicate-tasting and sweeter herb than
parsley, with a hint of aniseed. You hardly ever see it in Australasia, sadly.
“Eggah” with carrots:
The term “eggah”
comes from Middle Eastern cuisine, but the technique appears in several
cuisines, under various names.
“An eggah is firm and sound, rather like an egg cake. It
is usually an inch or more thick … with a filling of vegetables, or meat, or
chicken and noodles… The egg is used as a binding for the filling, rather than
the filling being an adornment of the egg. For serving, the eggah is turned out
on to a serving dish and cut into slices, as one would cut a cake. It is
sometimes cooked in a rectangular dish, especially if baked in the oven. In
this case, it is usually served cut into rectangular or square pieces.”
(Claudia Roden. A Book of Middle Eastern Food.
Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1970)
The recipe below is very typical of the
later 1970s, when we started to get vegetarian cookbooks that were mainstream,
not just for the weirdos who favoured Roman sandals and nudism along with their
vegetarianism. It isn’t called an eggah, but that’s what it is:
Baked Carrot Pudding [Eggah]
12
oz (350g) carrots; 6 eggs;
3
oz (75g) granary or wholemeal breadcrumbs;
1
medium onion and 1 clove garlic, finely chopped;
3
tablespoons dry white wine;
2
tablespoons white wine vinegar;
2
tablespoons chopped parsley; [1/4 teaspoon] nutmeg;
2
oz butter, melted; salt
Preheat oven to Reg 6 (400°F/200°C). Grease a
piedish or fairly deep oven dish with butter.
Grate carrots and put into a vegetable
steamer with onion and garlic. Steam for 20 mins, turning over several times.
[Allow to cool.]
Beat eggs, mix in crumbs, melted butter, wine
and vinegar. Then add carrot mixture, nutmeg, parsley and salt.
Turn mixture into piedish and bake for 30
mins.
–Serves 4.
(Gail Duff. Gail Duff's Vegetarian
Cookbook. London, Macmillan, 1978)
More on eggahs in Is
There An Egg In The house?
Lamb with carrots:
First, here’s
a modern New Zealand lamb casserole. Carrots usually went into your stew or
casserole in New Zealand, but back in the bad old days we never added wine or garlic—let
alone zizzing the dish up with gremolata!
One-Pot Lamb with Winter Roots
Tip: make a gremolata** and sprinkle over the
cooked lamb, or simply finely grate a little lemon or lime zest over the lamb.
500
g lamb shoulder, diced;
1
large carrot, peeled and diced;
1
large parsnip, peeled and diced;
1/2
swede, (about 150g), peeled and diced;
1
leek, trimmed and finely sliced;
2
garlic cloves, crushed; 1/2 cup dry
white wine;
2
cups chicken stock; 3 Tbsp seasoned
flour;
2
Tbsp olive oil
1. Heat the oven to 170C.
2. Roll the diced lamb in the seasoned flour.
Heat a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add 1 tablespoon oil and when
hot, brown the lamb on both sides, in batches, placing in a casserole dish as
you go. Wipe out the pan if necessary with kitchen paper.
3. Reduce the heat to low, add the remaining
oil then add the leek and garlic.
4. Cook gently until the leek begins to
soften, then add the carrot, parsnip and swede. Mix in any remaining flour.
5. Pour in the wine and allow to bubble up.
Add the stock and mix well, bring up to the boil then pour over the lamb. The liquid
should just cover the lamb and vegetables. If not, add more stock.
6. Place baking paper, cut to fit, on top of
the liquid to protect the meat and reduce evaporation. Cover with the lid, then
place in the oven and cook for 2 hours until the lamb is very tender. Serve
hot.
–Serves 4.
(By Kathy Paterson, Eat Well with Bite)
** Gremolata
is just a mixture of lemon zest, finely-chopped parsley and garlic, sometimes
with toasted breadcrumbs. There’s a nice example of its use in a vegetarian
dish on GourmetSleuth.com: “Pan
Fried Sweet Potatoes with Gremolata”.
A much more exotic approach to lamb with carrots
is offered by this next recipe, from Afghanistan. In the original the directions
and list of ingredients didn’t match up, so I’ve sorted them out as best I
could. This is pretty much a version of the pulao, found all over northern
India, but it is also reminiscent of the more elaborate biriyani, which combines
rice and lamb and bakes them. NB: It won’t be yellow if you don’t add the
saffron or at least turmeric.
Qaboli Palaw
(Yellow rice, lamb, carrots,
and raisins)
1 lb
[450g] long grain rice, preferably basmati;
1
1/2 lb [750 g] lamb on the bone; 2 large
carrots;
1 onion; 4 oz [125g] black seedless raisins [or
sultanas];
1
to 1-1/2 teaspoons each cinnamon, ground cumin, &
ground
cardamom
4
fl oz [125 ml] vegetable oil; 1 teaspoon
sugar;
1/2 pint [300 ml] water plus 2 1/2 [990 ml] pints
water;
1/4 teaspoon saffron (optional); salt & pepper
Brown 1 medium diced onion in oil. Fry until
the onion is fairly dark. Add 1 lb lamb cut into 1in-2in [2- 5cm] cubes and
brown lightly.
Add 2 cups of water, 1 tsp salt and 1 to 1-1/2
tsp each cinnamon, ground cumin and ground cardamom. Cover and simmer until
meat is tender, about an hour.
Remove meat from the juice [i.e. liquid] and
set juice aside.
Cut 3 carrots into match stick size pieces.
Sauter carrots and 1 tsp sugar in about 1/4 cup of oil. Cook until they are
lightly browned. Remove from oil.
Add 1 cup of raisins (or golden sultanas) to
the oil and cook until they swell up.
Boil the meat juice and add 2 cups basmati
(very long grained) rice, 1-1/2 tsp salt and enough boiling water to come 2
inches over the rice. Cook until the water is absorbed and the rice is tender—but
NOT mushy.
Mix the meat, carrots, raisins and rice
together. Place in a large oven-proof casserole, cover and bake at 300 degrees
F [150 C] for up to an hour.
To serve—place on platter, making sure the
carrots and raisins show on top.
(Afghan Online),
Carrots with nuts:
This recipe
from northern India is one of my favourites:
Carrots With Cashew Nuts:
Gajjar Bhajji
Cashew nuts themselves have a distinctive
flavour and when combined with carrots
the result is quite a different dish. This should turn out to be a dry curry
and is good for accompanying those meat dishes which contain a lot of curry
sauce … This is a very nutty dish but it is authentic Indian cooking. If you
prefer, use only 170 g/6 oz cashew nuts.
225
g /1/2 lb cashew nuts; 500 g/1 lb
carrots;
2
tomatoes; 1 large onion; 1 x 5-cm/2-in fresh ginger;
1
teaspoon garam masala; 1 teaspoon chilli
powder;
100
g/4 oz ghee or 120 ml/4 fl oz cooking oil;
150
ml stock; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon
flour
Scrub the carrots and cut them lengthways
into fairly thick strips. Peel and slice the onion.
Heat the ghee or cooking oil in a large
saucepan and fry the onion and carrots.
Peel the ginger and cut into lengthways
strips. Add the ginger, garam masala and chilli powder to the pan.
Continue to stir and add the flour. As the
mixture thickens, add the cashew nuts, stock and salt.
Bring to the boil and simmer with the pan
covered for about 20 minutes until the carrots are fully soft. If they soften
sooner than this, they are ready.
Chop the tomatoes coarsely and add to the
pan. Cook for a further 3-4 minutes and serve.
The curry should have a fairly thick sauce
but if it is not thick enough, rapidly boil it to drive off any excess water
(Khalid Aziz. The Encyclopedia of Indian
Cooking. London, Michael Joseph, 1983)
Carrots as Sweet Dishes
Carrots are naturally
so sweet that in many countries cooks have incorporated them into confectionary,
puddings and cakes. I’ve tried to pick out a few that are a bit different from
the now-standard carrot cake.
Carrot jam? Carrot jam!
When desperate,
make the jam from that carrot surplus. Mrs Beeton’s cook (I’d love to have met
her, martyred woman!) was doubtless making this for the household in the
mid-19th century, but without the brandy. It’s the sort of recipe that later cooks
would only turn to when times were hard and fruit was scarce but they could at least
get sugar. Those days have gone: yes, Veronica, there is no frugality.
Carrot Jam To Imitate Apricot
Preserve.
Ingredients.—Carrots; to every lb. of carrot pulp allow 1 lb. of
pounded sugar, the grated rind of 1 lemon, the strained juice of 2, 6 chopped
bitter almonds, 2 tablespoonfuls of brandy.
Mode.—Select
young carrots; wash and scrape them clean, cut them into round pieces, put them
into a saucepan with sufficient water to cover them, and let them simmer until
perfectly soft; then beat them through a sieve.
Weigh the pulp, and to every lb. allow the
above ingredients. Put the pulp into a preserving-pan with the sugar, and let
this boil for 5 minutes, stirring and skimming all the time.
When cold, add the lemon-rind and juice,
almonds and brandy; mix these well with the jam; then put it into pots, which
must be well covered and kept in a dry place. The brandy may be omitted, but
the preserve will then not keep: with the brandy it will remain good for months.
(Isabella Beeton. The Book of Household
Management. [London], S.O. Beeton, 1861.)
Carrots for pudding:
Even more frugal
than Mrs Beeton’s recipe is this Australian one dating from the 1940s. The
recipe could be even earlier (this very popular cookbook was published in
innumerable editions for decades), but it’s highly likely it’s one of the many
Australian and New Zealand wartime recipes copied from the British: the sort of
pudding recommended during World War II by the British Ministry of Food:
“Advertisements
encouraged families to start ‘Victory Gardens’ and to try new recipes using
surplus foods as substitutes for those less available. Carrots were promoted as
a sweetener in desserts in the absence of sugar, which was rationed to eight
ounces per adult per week. The Ministry’s ‘War Cookery Leaflet 4’ was filled
with recipes for carrot pudding, carrot cake, carrot marmalade and carrot flan.
Concoctions like ‘Carrolade’ made from rutabagas [swedes] and carrots emerged
from other similar sources.”
(K. Annabelle Smith. “A WWII Propaganda Campaign
Popularized the Myth That Carrots Help You See in the Dark”, smithsonian.com,
August 13, 2013)
Carrot Pudding
Half pound bread crumbs, 4 oz. suet, 1/4 lb.
raisins, 3/4 lb. carrot, 1/3 lb currants, 3 oz. sugar, three eggs, quarter
nutmeg, milk.
Mode.—Boil carrot until tender enough to mash
to a pulp. Add remaining ingredients, and sufficient milk to make the consistency
of thick butter. Time—Two and a half hours to boil or one hour to bake.
Strew sifted sugar over before serving, and have
white sauce or boiled custard with it.
–Mrs.
E. R. Ingham, Highgate.
(Green and Gold Cookery Book: Containing
Many Good and Proved Recipes. 15th ed. (rev.), Adelaide, R.M. Osborne,
[1949?])
Before the
now hugely popular carrot cake came in, the sorts of recipes promoted during the
War would in all likelihood be the only appearance carrots would make in sweet
dishes on the tables of the British Commonwealth.
Carrot cake for the modern time-poor cook:
Most keen home
bakers have their own favourite carrot cake recipe. But if you’ve got a slow
cooker (crock pot), you might like to give this modern Australian recipe a go:
Slow Cooker Carrot Cake
Preparation time: 15 to 30 minutes
Irresistibly moist, all of the family will
love this scrumptious cake.
2 cups peeled and grated carrots; 2 eggs;
3/4 cup large raisins; 1/2 cup sunflower seeds;
2 cups self-raising flour; 1/2 teaspoon baking powder;
3/4 cup brown sugar; 1/2 cup white sugar;
3/4 cup near melted butter; 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon;
1/2 teaspoon salt
Place all of the ingredients into a bowl and
stir with a wooden spoon or fork.
Tip into a well-greased cake tin, then place
cake tin into slow cooker.
Cover the cake tin with paper towels.
Cook on low for approximately 2 hours or
until cooked.
Recipe notes: Serve with passionfruit icing.
It is also enjoyable eaten with a dollop of cream and a hot chocolate [drink].
Serves: 12
(By: Cupcakekaty, January 9, 2011, BestRecipes),
Note that
slow-cooker-cakes don’t brown like oven-baked ones.
Carrot sweets:
The recipe below
is an early version of the Indian sweets often called halwa. Carrot sweets are
an Indian standard. This version, an Anglo-Indian one collected by an American missionary
who worked in India in the second half of the 19th century, is a much clearer
recipe than any of the modern ones I’ve read. She calls it a “cheese”, which at
the period was a standard name for a very thick, coagulated mixture. The usage survives
today in the variant “Lemon Cheese” sometimes used for “Lemon Curd”. But this isn’t
a runny mixture: the aim here, as with barfis, is to set the mixture so as it can
be cut up into small pieces. There is no other English word, unless you want to
use “fudge.” Note that like all fudge-type recipes it requires slow cooking and
a lot of stirring.
Carrot Cheese.
Boil a pound of carrots until very tender.
Then mash them perfectly smooth.
Mix with them a pound of sugar, a
tablespoonful of butter, and the juice of a large lemon. Also add a few
cardamom seeds.
Cook over a slow fire [stirring well] until
the mixture hardens into a paste.
Add a little more butter just before removing
from the fire.
Press into shallow pans and cut in neat
squares or diamonds like fudge.
(Mary Kennedy Core. The Khaki Kook Book: A
Collection of a Hundred Cheap and Practical Recipes Mostly from Hindustan.
[New York], Abingdon Press, [1917])
The picture
below, from Khalid Aziz’s The Encyclopedia of Indian Cooking (London,
Michael Joseph, 1983) shows a dish of typical Indian halwas and barfis: clockwise
from top, Suji halwa (semolina), Gajjar ka halwa (carrots), and Pista
barfi (pistachios). –I can’t tell the difference, actually. Never mind, all
are yummy!
… And the kids’ll never guess the sweets are
made from carrots.