Posts Tagged ‘purple carrots’

1 Feb

A Carrot of a Different Color

Posted by wooddogs3 in cooking, edible landscaping, farmers market, front yard gardening, home food production, recipe, sustainable, Vegetable dinners. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

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I like carrots in general, and this year I’m especially enamoured of the carrot variety named Deep Purple. As you see above, it is not a wimpy purple-blushed orange carrot. It is a startling deep indigo-violet right to the core. It is packed with anthocyanins, which can only do us good, and the flavor is a bit less sweet than many modern hybrids, which suits my preferences. I like carrots, not candy bars.

If you are accustomed to boiling carrots you will need to rethink your strategy, because the rich anthocyanin content in this one makes it bleed on the plate like boiled beets. This is not attractive, and I am no fan of boiled vegetables anyway, so a cooking method that keeps its juices inside where they belong makes sense.

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I am cooking a lot of carrot steaks lately and this is a great method for quick vegetable accompaniments that requires no forethought. The prep is quick. Catch your carrots, scrub them thoroughly, cut off the tops and bottoms, and cut the body of the carrot lengthwise into “steaks” of the thickness that you prefer. I like 1/4″ because I like them to cook quickly and get a little cooked clear to the center. I cook all the odd-shaped side slices because they are all delicious; the tapering parts get a little gooey and caramelized, which adds depth and savor. I salt the slices lightly, rub them with good olive oil, and add any seasoning that I might want. In the case shown here they were to accompany blackened fish chunks and so I dusted them lightly with blackening spices.

After you cook your entree, or in a separate nonstick skillet, heat the pan over medium-high heat and lay in the carrot slices, not letting them touch each other. Let them cook at a brisk sizzle until the underside looks cooked and is deep brown in spots, flip, and repeat. Serve and eat.

Incidentally, when I say “nonstick skillet,” these days I mean seasoned cast iron. The newer ceramic-lined nonstick skillets might be safer than the older ones, but their nonstick qualities rapidly break down if used over high heat and they are not considered safe for use under these circumstances. I also dislike the mushy not-really-a-crust that is produced over lower heat, and only fairly high heat will produce a true sear. So cast iron it is. Keeping a skillet seasoned takes a little extra work but not much. The Maillard browning reaction is the cook’s friend for deepening flavor and it happens happily in hot cast iron.  The meaty tang that browning produces makes carrot steaks an ideal vegetable entree.

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The same general method can be applied to purple carrot quarters as shown in the steaming plateful above. In this case I cooked them over lower heat for a longer time with no seasonings but salt and olive oil, and added thyme butter just before serving.

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Grilling is another great way to cook purple carrots. The ones shown above are a purple-blushed variety that I grew before I discovered Deep Purple, seasoned with garlic and ginger midway through grilling so that the garlic doesn’t burn and topped with chopped turmeric leaves to accompany a dish of southeast Asian grilled shrimp.

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19 Oct

How to love Your Carrots

Posted by wooddogs3 in cooking, edible landscaping, farmers market, front yard gardening, recipe, Uncategorized, Vegetable dinners, vegetable gardening. Tagged: , , , , , , .


I’m doing a blog series for our local newspaper this month, but some readers had trouble accessing those posts, so I decided to put them on my own blog as well. Here’s the third one:
Eating seasonally is a pleasure for most of the year, and fall is a wonderful time to eat carrots. We all know how healthy carrots are, so I’ll skip over that part and concentrate on how delicious they are. When I cook carrots I make a lot, because they are wonderful for at-your-desk lunching the next day. Usually I retrieve my lunch from the refrigerator at my mid-morning brief break and eat it at room temperature at lunchtime, as long as no egg yolks, mayonnaise, or other extreme perishables are involved. If I plan to eat them at room temperature for lunch I use olive oil instead of butter, since animal fats congeal unattractively when they aren’t hot, but if you prefer to use butter, no problem. Just heat your carrots a little the next day, then carry them back to your desk and eat happily, with the slightly smug glow that comes of doing the right and healthy thing and getting your work done at the same time.

First, catch your carrots. Real carrots come in bunches with the tops on, and if the tops look withered, don’t bother with those carrots. Get some fresh ones instead. Your nearest growers’ market is a great place to shop for them. Here in Albuquerque you can find several colors, including yellow, the standard orange, red, and a glowing royal-purple. I love the purple ones, but any of these techniques can be used for any carrot.

I use the word “technique” with forethought, because it is basic technique that makes it quick and easy to cook and eat lots of vegetables. If you have to read a recipe in the kitchen as you work, you will eventually get fed up, but technique lives in your brain and makes it a snap to blanch, saute’, stir-fry, bake, boil, or grill any veggie that you care to eat. No precise measurements are needed. So here are a couple of basic techniques for carrots:

Blanch, then saute’: trim and scrub four large carrots or six smaller ones of any color. Peel if needed (usually I scrub well with a brush instead.) Slice into slices about a quarter inch thick. Fill a large saucepan with about 2 quarts of water, add 2 teaspoons of salt, bring to a boil, toss in the carrots, boil 5 minutes, and drain thoroughly. If you want to, you can hold the drained carrots at room temperature for 2-3 ours, making it easy to do some work ahead of time if needed. Melt two tablespoons of butter in a frying pan, or use olive oil if you prefer. Put in the carrots, 2-3 teaspoons of honey, salt to taste, and a grating of fresh nutmeg. Saute’ over medium heat until the carrots are done to your liking, and serve. The blanching makes sure that the carrots cook evenly, and the saute’ing brings out their flavor. You can vary this infinitely: add herbs in the saute’ stage; thyme or savory are especially good with carrots. Chop a clove of garlic or half a small onion and cook in the butter or oil until just cooked through before adding the carrots. Use a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar instead of honey. Add a squeeze of fresh lemon juice for a very fresh flavor. Add half a teaspoon of grated orange rind with the honey. Add a tablespoon or two of dark rum and cook it off thoroughly before serving. Or, if you have access to some good artisanal root beer (I brew my own. Just don’t use the grocery-store glop) you can add a quarter cup of it when you add the carrots to the butter, and cook over high heat until the root beer is reduced to a syrup that just coats the carrots. A quarter-cup of dark ale produces a malty, ever-so-faintly bitter glaze that’s great with game. You can also cut the carrots into chunks about 2 inches long and then cut those into quarters at the initial prep, for a different texture. When using orange carrots, sometimes I cook a couple of purple potates separaely, slice them, and add them in for the saute’ stage.

Grilling: Usually people don’t think of grilling carrots, which is a shame, because the caramelization around the edges is delicious. Just cut them thinly. I like slices about 1/8” thick. Use a griddle or grill-wok so they don’t fall through the grill, and watch them closely so that they don’t burn. I describe a Southeast Asian seasoning here, but again the technique is key, and once you get the hang of it, you can season them any way you like. Trim and scrub 3-4 large carrots of any color, and slice them thinly. Toss with two chopped cloves of garlic, a 1” chunk of ginger grated, a tablespoon of Asian fish sauce (you can use soy sauce instead if you insist,) a tablespoon of agave nectar or coconut sugar, and 2 tablespoons of canola oil or similar. Heat the grill to medium-high and spread the carrot slices out on the griddle section or put them in the grill-wok. If griddling them, turn them in bunches with a spatula about halfway through. If using the wok, you will need to turn several times during cooking. Taste to see when the texture seems just right to you, salt a little if they need it (the fish sauce is fairly salty) and serve with some chopped cilantro on top.

8 Dec

Root vegetables Chairoscuro

Posted by wooddogs3 in cooking, edible landscaping, farmers market, front yard gardening, recipe, urban homesteading, Vegetable dinners. Tagged: , , , , , , .


This time of year, parsnips are your friends. They are sitting patiently out in the garden waiting for you to get to them, never demanding any special attention or winter storage. During hot weather they weren’t worth eating and you tended to forget about them, but while you were catering to the flighty tomatoes and peppers, they were biding their time. When the needier vegetables gave in to the frosts, they started to convert their stored starches to sugars. Now, whenever you can pry them out of the cold ground, they’re ready to meet you halfway with a sweet flavor that repays your labor. I love them roasted, but for whatever reason I’m not big on white vegetables, and I started looking for something to relieve their snowy monotony. Finally I settled on their visual opposite, the deep purple carrots that become almost black when roasted, to create a dish with a little drama.
Clean two big parsnips and cut them into chunks no more than an inch on any side. Thoroughly scrub 3 large purple carrots and cut them into chunks somewhat smaller than the parsnips. Combine a quarter cup of good olive oil, a few tablespoons of white wine, half a teaspoon of salt or to taste, and two cloves of chopped garlic. Now this part is important: Put the carrots and the parsnips in two separate bowls and toss each with half the olive oil mixture. Don’t toss them together, because the carrots will “bleed” and stain the parsnips an unattractive magenta in places. If you are using regular orange carrots, separation doesn’t matter. Put the pieces in a cazuela big enough to hold them in one layer, or use a 9X13 heavy pan lined with parchment paper. Roast at 325. Don’t toss them around during roasting, because of the staining problem from the anthocyanins in purple carrots. The timing will vary a lot depending on the tender/tough ratio of the roots and on your personal taste. I like winter root vegetables roasted until they are soft and well caramelized, and it usually takes close to 2 hours at this low heat. If you like yours with some crunch you can stop cooking them sooner, but taste them before turning the oven off. These are not the tender roots of summer, they’re big meaty winter roots, and you may not like the amount of crunch they retain. If necessary, cook longer. Sprinkle a little bit of minced parsley over the top. If you want to be sure they’re done in time for dinner, cook them a little earlier in the day and leave them slightly underdone, then return to the oven for a final 20 minutes before dinner.

A big serving of these “white and black” roots on a red plate makes a great main course with a little piece of something meaty in the center. A few thighs of good pastured chicken seasoned with thyme, garlic, and olive oil can be roasted in the same oven for the last hour or so of cooking and will accent the roots nicely without overwhelming their flavors.

21 Sep

My Southeast Asian Summer: Turmeric

Posted by wooddogs3 in cooking, edible landscaping, front yard gardening, greens, herbs, home food production, kitchen staples, salads, sustainable, Uncategorized, urban homesteading, vegetable gardening. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , .

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      Turmeric and its constituent components the curcuminoids, a complex of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory compounds, are getting attention and medical research dollars these days. But this blog is not about disease treatment or medical research, it’s about healthy and delicious food, and turmeric is here for its culinary qualities.  Both the roots and the leaves are a common seasoning in many parts of southeast Asia, and the leaves are impossible to buy in this area, which led to my experiments in growing them. It’s a tropical and needs to be brought indoors when the nights start to cool off, and during the summer it needs light shade and plenty of moisture. Initially I bought plants from an herb supplier, but since then have done better with plants I started at home.

       You need some roots from the store to get started. Put them on top of a pot of good organic potting soil and press them into the soil. Put in a warm place (a seed-starting warming mat will really speed things up,) keep moist, and within a month you’ll see small buds growing off the roots. In another month or so, you’ll have turmeric leaves to use.  It will prosper in a sunny window over the winter, but does best if it can go outdoors in the summer. Remember, part shade is important.

     To begin with the root, it can be grown in a pot but you are unlikely to get enough to use it freely. I don’t recommend the dried powder for most applications; to my palate if lacks the fresh vibrancy of the fresh root. I advise buying organic root, and you can often find it among the other fresh vegetables at La Montanita Co-op. Ask the produce manager if you don’t see it. It’s used in a lot of the seasoning pastes that I make for my southeast Asian cooking, so you’ll notice it in several of the recipes on this blog (use the search function to find them). But one of my favorite ways to use it is as a brilliant yellow-orange “juice” concentrate which I keep in a corked bottle in the refrigerator and add to water to make “sun juice.” The color alone is irresistible and cheers me up just to look at it.

     The leaves are large, glossy and handsome, and look attractive when the pot is brought indoors for the winter, but remember that any plant you’re always snipping at for kitchen use won’t look great for long. When cut they smell very like a fresh, sweet carrot, and I love to season carrots with them. Clich the link below the picture for recipes.

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