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Stewed Carrots in Cream
Wash and slice some large carrots, and simmer them in as much weak broth as will cover them till they are nearly tender, then add a cupful of milk or cream, and thicken the sauce with flour and butter. Season it with pepper and salt. Keep stirring the contents of the saucepan to prevent them burning. Put the carrots into a hot vegetable dish, and pour the gravy over them. Time, one hour and a half. Sufficient, six large carrots for five persons.
A plain braise in which the carrots cook in stock and finish in a milk-thickened sauce. The only figure that needs adjusting is the time.
- The hour and a halfSliced carrots in simmering liquid are usually tender in 15-20 minutes, and the sauce needs five more. The long time may reflect coarser carrots cut thick and a slower stove; taste at 15 minutes and stop when a knife meets slight resistance.
- Weak brothA thin, lightly salted stock — in a period kitchen, the diluted liquor left from boiling meat or bones. Stock cut half-and-half with water works, or plain water with a small piece of butter if you want the carrots to taste of themselves.
- Thicken with flour and butterMost likely butter and flour worked to a paste (beurre manie) and whisked into the simmering liquid in small pieces, though flour stirred into melted butter reads the same way. Begin with about 1 tablespoon of each to 2 cups of liquid and add more if you want it thicker. Simmer two or three minutes afterwards so the flour loses its raw taste.
- CupfulTake it as 8 fl oz. Cream will hold without splitting; whole milk needs the pan kept at a bare simmer once it goes in.
- CuttingEven slices about a quarter-inch thick cook at the same rate. Very large carrots may have a woody core worth quartering out lengthwise before slicing.
- Why the stirring mattersOnce the flour and dairy are in, the sauce catches on the bottom of the pan quickly. Keep the heat low and move a spoon across the base rather than swirling the top.
- YieldSix large carrots is roughly 1½ lb trimmed; the original gives it as sufficient for five as a side. Nutmeg or chopped parsley suits the finished dish; the original leaves it at pepper and salt.