Sunday 21 October 2007

Night Vision......

The evenings may be drawing in, but at least my tub garden is yielding some useful little chantenay carrots, to enable me to see in the dark of course.

Although small, this variety have a distinctly sweet flavour, and are ideal for cooking as "Vichy Carrots".

This just basically involves par boiling the sliced carrots in mineral water for about 5 mins (originally Vichy water hence the name, but you can use any sparkling water, or indeed still bottled water with a pinch of bicarb) then transferring them to a pan with some melted butter a teaspoon of sugar, and some salt and pepper, and simmering them until they are soft and the liquid has reduced to a glaze.

Or, you can just bung everything in the one pan with the water, (but not too much of it) and boil it all down in one go. Either way, they are usually served garnished with a little finely chopped parsley.

It's by far the best way to eat carrots, and allegedly even kids like them, though thankfully I am in no postion to check.

2 comments:

lilymarlene said...

I just pulled a very similar bunch this afternoon. Quite my favourite carrots, Royal Chantenay.
I'll have to give your recipe a try, although they are pretty tasty just steamed and served with butter.
Yours look good!

Petunia's Gardener said...

Nice job! And thanks for the recipe. I'll have to give it a try now that we're not getting our vegetables by purely grazing in the garden. Any local allotment in sight yet?