Carrots, Stewed
INGREDIENTS for dish for 6 persons. -7 or 8 large carrots, 1 teacupful of broth, pepper and salt to taste, 1/2 teacupful of cream, thickening of butter and flour. AVERAGE COST, 9d.
Scrape the carrots nicely, half boil, and slice them into a stewpan; add the broth, pepper and salt, and cream; simmer till tender, and be careful the carrots are not broken. A few minutes before serving, mix a little flour with about 1 oz. of butter; thicken the gravy with this, let it just boil up, and serve.
TIME.-About hour to boil the carrots, about 20 minutes to cook them after they are sliced.
SEASONABLE.-Young carrots from April to July; old ones at any time. 79 CAULIFLOWERS OR BROCCOLI.
Carrots, To Dress (in the German way). INGREDIENTS for large dish.-8 large carrots, 3 oz. of butter, salt to taste, a very little grated nutmeg, 1 tablespoonful of finely-minced parsley, i dessertspoonful of minced onion, rather more than 1 pint of weak stock or broth, 1 tablespoonful of flour.
AVERAGE Cost, 1s. ness.
Wash and scrape the carrots, and cut them into slices of about 1 inch in thick- Put the butter into a stewpan; when it is melted, lay in the carrots, with salt, nutmeg, parsley and onion in the above proportions. Toss the stewpan over the fire for a few minutes, and when the carrots are well saturated with the butter, pour in the stock and simmer gently until they are nearly tender. Then put into another stewpan a small piece of butter; dredge in about a tablespoonful of flour, stir this over the fire, and when of a nice brown colour, add the liquor that the carrots have been boiling in; let this just boil up, pour it over the carrots in the other stewpan, and let them finish simmering until quite tender. Serve very hot. This vegetable, dressed as above, is a favourite accompaniment to roast pork, sausages, &c. &c. TIME.-About hour.
SEASONABLE.-Young carrots from April to July; old ones at any time.
Cauliflowers à la Sauce
Two related carrot dishes: one finished with cream and a butter-flour thickening, one browned in butter and finished with a brown roux. Both are stovetop work, and both depend on the carrots holding their shape.
- Teacupful and average costA Victorian teacupful is usually reckoned at somewhere around 5-6 fl oz, so read it as most of a modern cup rather than a full one. The price in old pence gives no useful modern guide.
- Half boil, then sliceThe point of parboiling whole is that the carrots keep their shape when sliced and stewed. Give whole large carrots 10-15 minutes in salted water, until a knife meets resistance at the centre, then cool slightly before slicing.
- Timings are incompleteThe TIME lines have lost their fractions and read "About hour". Judge by the carrot: parboiling to half-done takes 10-15 minutes for large roots, and the stewing stage 15-20 minutes until they yield without collapsing.
- Broth"Weak stock or broth" means an unreduced, lightly salted meat stock. Modern concentrated stock or a cube will overpower the carrots and oversalt the dish once it reduces; dilute anything strong by half.
- The cream stageAdd the cream with the broth as written but keep the pan at a bare simmer. A rolling boil in a shallow stewpan reduces the liquid fast and knocks the slices apart, which the recipe specifically warns against.
- Thickening of butter and flourFor the stewed version this is worked cold: about 1 oz butter with a rounded tablespoon of flour, dropped into the simmering liquid in pieces and just boiled to lose the raw flour taste. In the German version the flour is instead dredged into a small piece of butter and cooked to a brown colour first, which is what gives that dish its colour and flavour.
- Slice thicknessThe German recipe's 1-inch slices are thick by modern habit; they need the full stewing time to soften through. Half-inch rounds cook more evenly if you are short of time.
- YieldSeven or eight large carrots serves six as a side dish. Old winter carrots benefit from having any woody core trimmed out before slicing.
Carrots dressed in butter with parsley, onion and a scrape of nutmeg, then moistened with stock and bound with a browned butter-and-flour thickening, is the pattern the book labels "the German way", and the pairing suggested here with roast pork and sausages points the same direction. Both dishes reflect the seasonal note attached to them: young carrots from April to July, old ones at any time, the coarse keeping roots being the ones that needed butter, stock and thickening.