WINTER CARROTS

    I can not tell you how excited I was to go into a market the other day to see in the produce section a bin of winter carrots. Giant carrots still with plenty of soil on them as if they had just been scooped up from the field and placed there. A note, when storing vegetables say in a root cellar or basement, keep the dirt on them do not wash them off until you are ready to use them. Washing the dirt off compromises the skins and causes them to go bad quicker.

   When I say winter carrots I’m not referring to the varieties of carrots specially hardy to cold weather raising such as Danvers or Red Chanteney. I’m referring to carrots that were left in the ground through the winter, and picked in the spring, large and sweet. In many climates the ground will not freeze very far down at all even through the cold winter. Carrots which are pretty hardy, and usually growing deep in the soil can be mulched over in the late fall when frosts come. Cover them with wood shavings, or hay, or even leaves. In the early spring like this time of year you can dig through the mulch and find fresh carrots to harvest still growing in the ground. These carrots have had time to grow bigger but in the cold they have not grown tough and dry but sweeter with higher sugar content.

     I was one of the few customers in the market excited to find them there. A few folks walking buy wondered what they were, and one gal just said gross... pity they knew not what they were missing. I selected five well shaped ones about the size of sweet potatoes.  I photographed them with my glasses and phone so you could see how big they were. So tonight I slow roasted them whole just as my mother used to do, then you make a nice glaze to drizzle on them. to do the same you will need:

§        Five  to seven large winter carrots

§        3 tbsp butter barely melted

§        3 tbsp olive oil

§        fresh cracked pepper

§        1 tsp nutmeg

§        1 tsp salt

§        1 tsp garlic powder

§        1 tsp onion powder

§        1 tsp sage

     Skin the carrots and cut off the ends. Combine all the other ingredients and coat the carrots well rolling them back and forth on a cookie sheet. Heat your oven to 400° F. place a shelf in the upper third of oven. Set your carrots on the shelf to roast and set timer for 20 minutes. Every 20 minutes turn them over first half way the just a quarter turn until they have gone four cycles of 20 or a total of 80 minutes.

     While they roast make the glaze.

§        1 cup of water

§        1 chicken bouillon cube

§        1 & ½ cups white sugar

§        ½ cup of brown sugar

§        ½ tsp salt and some pepper to taste

§        1 tsp chili powder

§        1 tsp nutmeg

§        1 stick butter or margarine cut into pieces

§        3 tbsp corn starch, with just enough water to mix into a slurry (a liquid about the consistency of whole milk)

     Dissolve your cube in the water and heat in a sauce pan. Add the sugars and spices and simmer until it melts. Bring all to a boil and  make a simple syrup, then reduce the heat again to low. Melt the butter into the syrup. When the butter is melted add the corn starch slurry bringing the syrup glaze to a boil and it should just thicken lightly. Set glaze aside keeping it warm.

   When the carrots are roasted, take them out and cool just slightly. * At this point if you have something else to cook at a lower temp, keep your whole roasted carrots warm and don’t slice them yet. I warmed up my Le Creuset casserole and placed them in the hot casserole with a towel over them out of the way in the laundry room. They stayed good and hot enough for the next hour while I had to cook a casserole at a lower heat. 

When ready to serve. Be sure the glaze is hot. Slice them on the diagonal layering them in a shallow baking/serving dish. Drizzle the glaze over them plentifully. Serve with remaining glaze in a gravy boat for folks to add more if they wish. Enjoy. I certainly did.

Blessings mes amis