Home › Christmas Dinners › Carrots and Celery
Carrots and Celery
Cut carrots, after scraping, in slivers 3 in. long. Boil in salted water. Prepare celery by washing and cutting it in cubes. When carrots are half cooked, add the celery and finish cooking together. Drain. Season with salt, pepper, butter and a little cream.
A plain braise-and-butter side dish that depends entirely on staggering the two vegetables so neither collapses. The original gives no quantities or times, so the cook is expected to judge by eye.
- ProportionsThe original gives no quantities. Roughly equal volumes of carrot and celery work well: about 1 lb carrots to 4 or 5 celery ribs will serve six as a side.
- Cut sizesThe original fixes only the 3 in. length; "slivers" implies thin batons, and cutting the celery into cubes of roughly 1/2 in. will help the two finish together despite the head start.
- TimingThe original says only to add the celery when the carrots are half cooked; in practice about 8 minutes in boiling salted water before the celery goes in, then 5 to 7 minutes more. Celery given the full carrot time goes drab and limp, which is why it is added late.
- Drain thoroughlyReturn the drained vegetables to the dry hot pan for half a minute to steam off surface water. Otherwise the butter and cream slide off rather than coating.
- The cream"A little cream" is unquantified; a couple of tablespoons stirred in at the end is enough to gloss the vegetables. It is not a sauce; too much and the dish turns into creamed celery.
- SeasoningSalt the cooking water properly, then correct at the end. A grating of nutmeg or a spoonful of chopped celery leaf suits the pairing without straying from the original intent.
- Make-aheadBoil and drain the vegetables an hour ahead, spread them on a tray to stop the cooking, and finish with butter and cream just before serving. Useful when the oven is occupied by a roast.
History: Celery had a particular place at nineteenth- and early twentieth-century dinners: blanched celery was treated as a prestige vegetable, served raw and often presented upright in a tall glass celery vase, so cooking it was a way of stretching something already regarded as a treat. A plain boiled-and-buttered vegetable of this kind belongs to a style of cookery in which each side dish was kept simple alongside the roast.