The Root of My Garden – Butter Simmered Carrots
When I was a little kid, before the era of ready-to-eat “baby” carrots, my parents would peel three carrots and place them on a plate for my brothers and me to eat before dinner while we set the table (and fought). They tricked us into eating another vegetable, in addition to whatever was served with the main meal. At the time I didn’t see it as a trick; I have always loved carrots.
Store-bought carrots can be hit or miss. Sometimes they are sweet and crunchy and delicious, while at other times they are bitter and almost a tiny bit soft to the bite with a hard, woody core, like they’ve been sitting around in storage for months. Not very satisfying.
I have some vague memory from when I was young, of stopping at a farm stand somewhere in the country and eating fresh-harvested carrots. We must have eaten them as a snack right then and there. I probably complained that they weren’t peeled, but I knew after the first bite I had never had carrots like these before. They were a revelation; earthy and sweet and far superior to even the best supermarket carrots. In my garden, these are the carrots I strive to grow.
They are not the easiest vegetable to grow in the garden; sometimes barely a root will grow, and often when they do, they can be misshapen from rocks and as bitter and tough as a tree branch. For a time I stopped growing carrots because it wasn’t worth the valuable garden real estate. About 10 years ago when I switched to gardening in raised beds at our new house, I tried growing carrots again. I hit garden gold.
To prepare the raised beds, I sieved literally tons of soil by hand, and it changed the equation for carrots. With no large rocks in the soil, and I suppose the right mix of nutrients, they now grow in abundance, with slightly tapered roots. And if I wait to harvest them until fall when the air is crisp and cold, the starches have turned to sugars (which act as an antifreeze) and my carrots are as sweet and earthy as that day at the country farm stand.
I now harvest pounds of carrots, planted in succession at different times during the spring and summer. While my carrots tend to be small in size (the Nantes variety I grow does not get more than a few inches in length), they are big in flavor. Often when friends with young children come visit and I show them the garden, the kids are thrilled to pull a carrot from the soil. Hidden underground, they don’t know what they are harvesting until they pull on the leaves and stems, and out from the soil pops a humble carrot. After a quick wash they then bite into it, and they know what a real carrot tastes like.
Butter Simmered Carrots
While carrots from the garden are excellent to munch on raw, sometimes you want cooked carrots as a side dish. This simple recipe, adapted from the Settlement Cookbook, is perfect for carrots just picked from the garden. But it is also perfect for store-bought carrots; the added sugar sweetens things up just enough to hide flaws in carrots that may have been sitting around for too long or those that have become too starchy.
This recipe is endlessly adaptable. Try brown sugar or maple syrup in place of the granulated sugar. Tarragon, parsley, or fennel fronds would change the flavor, but are excellent options if dill is not available. Orange juice or orange zest would be interesting. And a bit of thinly sliced spicy red chili would be an excellent complement to the carrots, both visually and in flavor.
4 servings, about a half hour
2 Tbsp. butter
1 lb. carrots, peeled and cut evenly into coins or batons, or if small enough, left whole
2 Tbsp. sugar, more if needed
½ tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. chopped fresh dill as garnish
- Melt butter on medium heat in a heavy skillet large enough to hold all of the carrots and with a tight fitting lid.
- Add carrots, sugar, salt, and 1 tablespoon water, and stir to dissolve the sugar and salt and coat the carrots.
- Reduce heat to low, cover, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the carrots are soft and cooked through, about 15 minutes. If at any time during cooking the water has evaporated and the carrots are in danger of burning, add more water a tablespoon at a time. When almost cooked, taste a carrot and add more sugar or salt if needed.
- Remove the lid so any remaining water evaporates, allowing the butter and sugar to form a glaze coating the carrots.
- Place carrots on a serving dish and top with fresh chopped dill.
