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Nivernaise Garnishing
Scrape and wash twenty-four very small spring carrots. Place in a saucepan with an ounce butter, half teaspoon salt, one teaspoon sugar and two saltspoons white pepper; pour in three gills water, cover the pan, set on the fire for five minutes, then place in the oven for forty-five minutes, drain off the water and use as required.
A classic French garnish of glazed baby carrots, written for a kitchen that had a coal range with a permanently warm oven. Two things need translating: the measures, and the cooking time.
- Gills and saltspoonsThree gills is 1½ cups (about 350 ml). A saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so two saltspoons of white pepper is ½ teaspoon — generous but correct for a garnish meant to be tasted alongside plain meat.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given; the recipe says only 'place in the oven,' leaving the heat to the cook's judgement. A moderate oven, in the region of 325–350F, is a reasonable modern reading, with the pan covered.
- The forty-five minutesForty-five minutes will reduce genuinely small spring carrots to mush. Today's thinned baby carrots need 15–25 minutes covered until a knife slides in with slight resistance; check at 15. Why the original allows so long is unclear; the carrots it assumes may well have been larger and denser than what is sold as 'baby' now.
- Do not drain, reduceThe original simply drains off the water and leaves the carrots to be 'used as required.' Better practice is to uncover once tender and boil the liquid down with the butter and sugar until it coats the carrots in a syrupy glaze — a minute or two, shaking the pan.
- Carrot choiceBagged "baby carrots" are lathe-cut mature carrots and will not behave the same way; they lack the sugar and cook unevenly. Use true small bunched carrots, or quarter and trim larger ones into even batons.
- YieldTwenty-four carrots garnishes a roast or braise for four to six. It is a component, not a side dish in the modern sense — spooned around a joint of veal, lamb or braised beef at the moment of serving.
Nivernaise takes its name from the Nivernais, the old province around Nevers, in what is now the Burgundy region, long associated with carrots — the classification of a garnish by its region was standard practice in the French professional kitchen codified by Escoffier and his contemporaries, and a cook reading "à la nivernaise" on a menu was expected to know it meant glazed carrots, usually with small onions or braised lettuce alongside. Books like this one carried these garnish formulas so that a home cook could assemble a French-styled dinner from parts. The technique here — a little butter, a little sugar, barely enough water, and a lid — is the classic glaçage à blanc, and it survives essentially unchanged in kitchens today.