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Carrots and New Potatoes
Clean and scrape a number of very small carrots; wash and scrape twice as many new potatoes. Boil the latter as usual; cook the carrots in as little water as possible, adding a little salt, sugar and 1 teaspoonful of butter. Quarter the potatoes as soon as done and add to the carrots ten minutes before they are to be served. Allow the water to almost evaporate. Add another teaspoonful of butter and when in the serving dish sprinkle with a little finely chopped parsley.
A straightforward glazed vegetable dish that depends on the carrots cooking down in almost no liquid. The instructions assume you know what "boil as usual" means and give no quantities, so a little judgment is needed.
- The hinge: almost no waterThe carrots are meant to braise-glaze, not boil. Use just enough water to come a third of the way up the carrots in a wide pan with a lid, so that by the end the liquid has reduced to a buttery film that coats them.
- Quantities and yield"A number of" carrots and twice as many potatoes is all the guidance given. About 1 lb small carrots to 1 1/2-2 lb new potatoes serves four as a side; keep the two-to-one ratio by count, not weight.
- ScrapingNew potatoes and young carrots were scraped rather than peeled because the skins were thin and fresh. A scouring pad or the back of a knife does the job; supermarket carrots may need a peeler.
- Sugar and salt"A little" sugar means roughly a teaspoon for a pound of carrots. It is there to reinforce the glaze and the carrots' own sweetness.
- Timing the two vegetablesSmall new potatoes take 15-20 minutes to boil, young carrots 10-15 to become tender in their small amount of water. Work backwards so the quartered potatoes go into the carrots ten minutes before serving, as directed, and finish together.
- ButterTwo teaspoons total for a dish of this size is sparing. A tablespoon at each stage gives a better glaze if you are not counting pennies.
- Watch the end of the reductionOnce the water has gone the sugar and butter will catch quickly. Keep the heat low for the last few minutes and shake the pan rather than stirring, so the potatoes do not break up.
Recipes like this one belong to the spring end of the kitchen calendar, when the first thinnings of the carrot bed and the earliest small potatoes came in together and were cooked together as a matter of course. Pairing them is old practice in English and American kitchens, and the technique here — a scant amount of water, salt, sugar and butter, reduced until it glazes — is one often associated with young roots. The whole art of the recipe lies in making two teaspoonfuls of butter and a pinch of sugar do the work of a cream sauce.