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Carrots, Bourgeoise
Carefully scrape and pare twelve small, sound carrots; then cut into halves, lengthwise. Wash well, then place in a saucepan with four whole peppers, one teaspoon fine sugar, half ounce butter, one and a half pints hot broth or hot water. Cover the pan and cook on a very brisk fire for fifteen minutes, or till the carrots are thoroughly soft.
Place in a small saucepan three-quarters of an ounce butter with one tablespoon flour, stir and heat well, then strain the liquor of the carrots into this roux, adding a gill hot milk; mix well, and as soon as it comes to a boil transfer the carrots only into this pan, adding one teaspoon chopped parsley. Carefully mix without mashing the carrots; boil for five minutes longer. Pour into a hot, deep dish and serve.
A plain French braise finished in a milk-thickened velouté. The one thing to watch is the liquid: the recipe cooks the carrots in a pint and a half of broth, then asks you to strain all of it into a roux built on a tablespoon of flour, which will give you soup rather than sauce.
- Handle the liquorStrain the cooking liquid and use only about a cup of it in the roux, adding it gradually until the sauce coats a spoon. Reserve or reduce the rest; a tablespoon of flour will not carry three cups of broth.
- Weights and measuresA gill is half a cup (4 fl oz). Half an ounce of butter is one tablespoon; three-quarters of an ounce is a generous tablespoon and a half. A pint and a half is three cups.
- "Four whole peppers"Almost certainly four whole black peppercorns, not four peppers of any kind. Fish them out before saucing, or use more if you want the seasoning to register.
- A very brisk fireHigh heat, lid on, so the broth boils hard around the carrots. On a modern burner that is a fast rolling simmer rather than a gentle braise.
- Cooking timeFifteen minutes suits older, denser winter carrots. Halved young supermarket carrots are usually tender at eight to ten minutes; test with a knife tip, since overcooked halves will break apart in the final five-minute boil.
- Twelve small carrotsRoughly a pound to a pound and a quarter. Thick carrots should be quartered lengthwise rather than halved so the pieces cook evenly.
- FinishingFold the carrots into the sauce off the boil and return it gently; the instruction to mix "without mashing" is the point of the dish. Taste for salt at the end, as broth-based versions and water-based versions season very differently.
- YieldServes four to six as a vegetable side.
À la bourgeoise is the French kitchen's term for plain household cooking, the middle-class table rather than the restaurant one. Carrots treated this way sit alongside the better-known carottes Vichy, which are glazed in butter and sugar with no sauce at all; here the small spoonful of sugar does similar work, drawing out sweetness before the velouté goes on. The method also reflects an older economy of the stove: the carrots' cooking broth becomes the sauce, so nothing is poured away.