No. 2713

Carrots, Viennese Style

Carottes a la Viennaise

Scrape some large carrots and cut them up into balls with a vegetable spoon five-eighths of an inch in diameter; blanch them in salted water until half done, then drain, place them in a saucepan with white broth (No. 194a), salt and a very little sugar; finish cooking, letting the liquid fall to a glaze, and just when ready to serve thicken with a little well-buttered veloute sauce (No. 415), to which add lemon juice, fine herbs and meat glaze (No. 402).

← No. 2712 Carrots Glazed or with Fine Herbs Carrots, Beets & Root Vegetables No. 2714 Carrots with Cream →

For the Modern Kitchen

A short Ranhofer garnish that depends on three cross-references you will not have: white broth, velouté, and meat glaze. All three can be reduced to one pan of good stock plus butter.

The hinge: glaze, then thicken off the heatThe hinge: glaze, then thicken at the last moment -- The carrots must cook until the broth has reduced to a syrupy film clinging to them, not swim in liquid. The recipe adds the buttered veloute and lemon "just when ready to serve"; keep the heat low at that point, since a heavily buttered sauce will separate if boiled hard.
Vegetable spoonA parisienne scoop or melon baller. Five-eighths of an inch is roughly a 16 mm cutter, the standard small size; anything from 15 to 20 mm behaves the same. Use fat, straight carrots or you waste most of the vegetable.
White broth (No. 194 a)An unbrowned veal or poultry stock. Unsalted commercial chicken stock is the closest substitute; season it yourself since the liquid is being reduced to a glaze and will concentrate.
Velouté (No. 415)Veloute (No. 415) -- A white roux loosened with the same white broth and simmered until smooth. For this quantity a tablespoon of it is plenty; "well-buttered" means enriched with cold butter whisked in off the heat, though no proportion is given.
Meat glaze (No. 402)Stock reduced to a sticky, near-solid essence. A teaspoon of commercial demi-glace concentrate stands in. It is there for colour and depth, so add it sparingly and taste.
Fine herbsFines herbes is conventionally chopped parsley with chervil and tarragon, and sometimes chives, though usage varies from book to book. Chop them at the last minute and add with the lemon juice.
Blanching "half done"Two to three minutes in well-salted boiling water for 16 mm balls, then drain well. They should still be firm; the glazing stage finishes them in another eight to ten minutes.
YieldThe recipe gives no quantities. Two pounds of large carrots will scoop out enough balls for roughly six servings; the page does not say whether it is meant as a garnish beside a roast or as a vegetable in its own right.

A Little History

This is one of a run of some half-dozen carrot preparations in Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the encyclopedic record of his decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York. What the label a la viennoise signified is not explained here; in this dish the marker appears to be the sweet-sour finish over a glazed root. The scooping of carrots into uniform balls is pure haute-cuisine economy of appearance rather than of material, and it tells you what kind of establishment the book served: a kitchen with enough labour to turn pounds of carrots into a bowl of spheres, and enough traffic in stock and veloute that these preparations were always standing on the range.