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Wednesday, April 01, 2009

My not so secret crush

I have the most awful crush on Jamie Oliver. I may have mentioned it in the past. I may have mentioned that my husband is rather jealous of this and gleefully pointed out that in his most recent pictures, Jamie looks a bit fat. He's such a girl, my husband. I love him so.

Anyway, I mentioned on this blog that I was making some fancy food for husband's birthday and while I've already posted the chicken recipe (which reminds me, I need to get the left over chicken out of the freezer if I want dinner tonight) I also tried a new carrot recipe from Jamie Oliver and I wanted to tell you that it's ONLY THE BEST DAMN CARROT RECIPE EVAH!

So I'm going to give it to you. I do hope Mr. Oliver doesn't mind. Did I mention it was the BEST DAMN CARROT RECIPE EVAH?!?!

Jamie Oliver's Sticky Saucepan Carrots
aka BEST DAMN CARROT RECIPE EVAH!
Ingredients (Dear Mr. Oliver, this serves nowhere near 4... too damn good)
1 3/4 lb carrots peeled, cut into 2 inch lengths, ...ish. (1 kg - like I'm going to sweat the conversion and like you were going to remove carrots from the 1 kg bag anyway, and I don't know, the length of your thumb or something.)
butter
a few bay leaves
salt and pepper

Instructions
1. Stand the carrots up in a pan on their heads. (Or butts, depending on how you feel the carrot universe is organized.) Try to get a pot that fits the carrots so they are all standing/sitting snugly and not laying down. Lazy carrots don't deserve this recipe.
2. Stick a knob or two or however much you feel is necessary on the top of the carrots. Seriously, Jamie told me to use "a large knob." I don't know what this is, so I went with aprox. 3 "almost" tablespoons in different sections of the pot. (Okay, okay, I took what I felt to be a large knob and cut it into three chunks, I only eyeballed the size after I'd thrown 'em in.)
3. Poke a few bay leaves between the carrots. Having made three knobs of butter I opted for 3 bay leaves. I was feeling the symmetry. Yes, I am psychotic, why do you ask?
4. Add enough water to come halfway up the carrots. Bring to a boil, cover, and turn down the heat. Simmer for about 20 minutes.
5. Take the lid off and let the liquid reduce until there isn't any left. (You might have to turn the heat up again.) This will take about half an hour. Seriously. Jamie said so and at first I didn't believe him because there was so much liquid. I doubted him for the first 15 minutes and then suddenly the pot hit the tipping point and the water just beamed itself out.
6. Let the carrots sizzle gently in the butter for about 5 minutes until the bottoms of the carrots are sticky-brown. Serve.

Optional step:
7. Swear that you will never make carrots in any other way ever again.

7 comments:

  1. Ooh, thanks for that recipe. My husband adores carrots, so I'll give it a try.

    We're huge fans of his potato salad recipe. Delicious!

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  2. I think he's cool too. He gets so excited about everything. What do you serve the carrots with? Chicken? as a veggie to meat?

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  3. I think he's cute. There's also another chef who's name I can't think of right now that is just h-o-t. I'm gonna try this one. Have you ever tried cooking carrots in honey? Emm calls them candy carrots because they are sticky and sweet.

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  4. @ Fuzzy: would that be the one with horseradish? Because I also made that, and while I didn't quite go with the rest of the meal, husband scarpered with the leftovers to work the next day.

    @ Gutsy Writer: I dished up these carrots with the chicken recipe I posted a few days ago. I think you could serve them with just about anything.

    @ Jacki: This recipe really brought out the sweetness of the carrots. They carmelized even without the addition to sugar. I think that's about as sweet as I'm going to go. I used to be a big sugar nut, but these days I'm really into salty things. Dunno why. But I do love honey on biscuits and on cornbread.

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  5. Ah no, it was one I found on FoodNetwork.com, I thought, and it's made with anchovies. My husband can't get enough of it when I make it.

    I'll look at my printout tonight and find out the site where I got it, because right now I can't seem to get hold of it

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  6. Sverre just brought home a huge bag of carrots. Glad I read this recipe, else they would have all gone to the dog for snacks! (I'm not a raw carrot fan, and picky about how they're cooked.) This looks really good!

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  7. Okay, so we finally tried this recipe and it was great! we did it with baked potato wedges and some easy chicken. Next time I'll do it with something that will provide more color on the plate, very brown and orange! Rave reviews from both of us! Thanks for sharing!

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