I Don’t Know How to Glaze You

Any ideas for a wintertime vegetable? Nothing is in season and I am getting tired of the frozen food section.

Sure cookbooks, magazines and the internets are full of ideas about pureed rutabagas, cardoon fritters and whipped parsnips but even the most adventurous eater will often want something familiar, an item that doesn’t take a lot of brain space or prep time for the nightly meal.

Carrots are inexpensive, easy to make and they really fit well in that meat-starch-veg trinity that many home cooked meals are engineered around. Carrots and potatoes roasted in an oven are practically a lobotomized preparation. Slightly more challenging than turning the oven on and scrubbing root vegetables are glazed carrots.

There are 2 obstacles in glazing carrots: First is cutting the tapered veg into pieces that will cook at same rate. Second and a little more difficult to control - Adding the right amount of liquid – too little and the carrots don’t cook properly – too much and you are boiling carrots, which is about as delicious as hospital food.

Cutting requires some thought. There needs to be enough surface area so the carrot cooks evenly. Thick slices will work but for to score style points, try the cut oblique. Here, the carrot is cut on the bias (45º) into 1-1½ inch segments. The oblique part is that between each cut, the carrot is rolled 1/3, producing irregular but uniform sized pieces that will all cook at the same pace.

This would be an easier preparation if the recipe called for X cups of water for each pound of peeled and cut carrots but the size of the pan complicates the equation. You want a pan big enough so that carrots cover the bottom in a single layer and you want just enough water to cover the carrots halfway.

There is one final degree of difficultly - the heat. Which really shouldn’t be an issue, because the only time you should use the highest setting on your stove is when you are boiling water, but it ends up being an issue because no one really cooks that way. Medium heat, you want to cook the carrots before the water evaporates, but you don’t want to evaporate the water before the carrots are done.

#2 lbs Carrots – peeled and cut into uniformly-sized pieces
2 Tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons brown sugar
Salt & pepper (Ground caraway seeds, chopped cilantro/parsley/rosemary or 2 T of brown liquor are optional flavorings. Scotch and caraway are surprisingly good, but not any better than apple brandy and the combination of rye and brown sugar is classic).

Add carrots to an appropriately sized pan – one that has enough room so the carrots cover the bottom of the pan in a single layer.

Fill pan with enough water to come halfway up the sides of the carrots

Add butter and spice/seasonings and place a piece of foil or parchment paper over the top of the carrots – not the pan – this controls how quickly the water evaporates. Turn heat on to medium.

Since medium heat is a nebulous concept with the variables of gas/electric/type of pan/age of appliance, check the veg after ten minutes by poking the carrots. The tip of a knife should go in and come out. If the carrots still resist, continue to cook adding water ¼ cup at a time as necessary. If the carrots are ready but water still remains, remove foil/parchment and turn heat up to high – TO BOIL WATER - until it is evaporated.

Serve.