The best ever carrots cooked in carrot juice

This amazing method of cooking carrots comes from the utterly fantastic Lucky Peach Magazine, a quarterly journal of food and writing. It’s a recipe by David Chang, one of my culinary heroes, and comes from an article in the latest ‘Chefs Edition‘ where he challenges a few cooking techniques.

I’ll get to the carrots in a bit, but in this article, which is superbly written by Peter Meehan, Chang says ‘We’ve got to talk about it in the Chefs Issue. About not always blindly following culinary dogma. Especially blanching. And stocks. Boiling stocks is so stupid. And olive oil is a scam for idiots.’

He puts forward a great argument for all of the above with Mark Bittman, and it’s an excellent read.

I love it when chefs rethink culinary methods. Like when Heston made ice cream with dry ice. A simple and small change to an existing way of doing things, and boom, you have something so much better.

I knew immediately that I wanted to test this technique as I get the notion that blanching vegetables in water before finishing them off in the pan is weird. I’m not sure if I agree with Chang’s philosophy about never blanching vegetables because a quick blanch for some dishes (salads) can take the much-needed raw edge off, but cooking carrots (or vegetables in general) in their own juice makes so much sense. The flavour intensifies and they are completely delicious.

David cooks up these carrots in fresh carrot juice which has been fortified with kombu to add fantastic umami flavour. He’s very big into adding umami. I followed it to the T, and like with most chef recipes there is always going to be some butter and salt.

Cooks notes ~ He doesn’t specify how big the piece of kombu needs to be, just indicates one sheet, and since the sheets available here are massive, I cut about a 15cm square piece off. I scrubbed the vegetables with a hard-bristled vegetable brush instead of peeling them as per the recipe and it’s quite amazing how clean they become. No more peeling for me. The peels contain loads of antioxidants so why take those away? It’s also a waste. I squeezed the juice myself in my juicer and it takes about 6 carrots to yield a cup. You will need to cook the carrots in a frying pan with a lid.

As the carrots were just finishing cooking, the juices started sticking to the pan and created this exquisite caramelised sticky paste. I couldn’t stop myself from scraping every last carroty morsel off.

the best ever carrots cooked in carrot juice

The best ever carrots cooked in carrot juice recipe.

Print Recipe

Prep Time:10 minutes mins

Cook Time:40 minutes mins

Total Time:50 minutes mins

Ingredients

• 1 cup freshly squeezed carrot juice
• 1 sheet kombu I used about a 13cm x 8cm piece
• 1 - 2 T butter
• 4 carrots scrubbed and roughly sliced on the bias I kept it fairly thick
• salt to taste

Instructions

• In a small pot, heat the carrot juice with the kombu (lowest setting and allow it to steep for 20 - 40 mints. I let it simmer for 10 minutes with the lid on and then allowed it to cool and seep for the remainder of the time.
• Melt the butter in a wide pan with a lid and once the butter has stopped bubbling add your carrots. Add a large pinch of sea salt and toss it all around to coat the carrots. Add the carrot juice and cover the pan.
• Continue to cook the carrots until done to your preference, giving the pan a shake now and again or stirring. They should be cooked for around 6 - 8 minutes - or longer if you prefer softer.

Notes

I have not included the steeping time in this recipe

Servings: 4 as a side

Author: Sam Linsell

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