Merry Christmas Food Tubers
I can tell you, things are starting to get very festive here in the river cottage kitchen
and today I'm gonna show you one of my favorite winter rooty dishes
my sesame roast carrots
Here I've got just about a kilo of the finest winter carrots
Now these are the big fellows. Full of crunch and flavour
I'm gonna use as many as it takes to pretty much
pretty much fill up my roasting tray but I don't want to overcrowd it
when they won't get crispy and caramelized in just the way that I want
when it comes to chopping chunky carrots for roasting, rough-and-ready is definitely the way
No perfect circles no geometric patterns
I want quirky angles and that's where you get the crispy callers
and the lovely toffee-ish flavours
I'll just rotate it in a fairly random way and look at those... lovely pieces.
Keep it random Food Tubers, it makes for more interesting sizes and shapes
It looks better and it tastes better
Look at that, with the winter sunlight crashing through onto my carrots
They already look incredibly appetizing
We're roasting so we need a little bit of oil and I'm using the finest Devon culinary rapeseed oil
The sweet flavour of the rapeseed goes really well with the carrots
Sesame seeds are a really good addition to roast roots of any kind, but particularly carrots.
So I'm gonna be really generous with them
and now just a bit of salt and pepper
And they're going to go straight into a fairly hot oven, about 180 degrees for 45 minutes or so.
Actually I could leave my sesame roast carrots right there, when they come out the oven, they're going to be delicious.
and they make a perfect side dish
but because we're getting festive, I'm going to build up a whole extra layer of flavours to mingle with them
when they come out of the oven and these flavours really are going to be quite Christmassy
I've got an Orange here and I'm going to start with some of its zest
and I want the juice... such a big fella in fact that half is probably gonna do me
Trickly that into my saucepan
into the juice goes a generous few handfuls of raisins
about a hundred grams
and a teaspoon of honey
As soon as it starts to bubble and the honey is dissolved
turn off the heat... and that hot liquid will be quickly absorbed into those plump raisins.
There's a lovely sizzle going on there... they've had about 15 minutes... maybe 20
Time to give them a little turn
Look at that. You can see now just the beginnings... of the most fantastic colour.
back in the oven to finish them off
I reckon my carrots are just about seconds away from perfect roasti-ness.
I'm just gonna run my blade across a little pile of flat leaf parsley
I don't want dust so it's really just a light loose chopping
I'm betting we're gonna be right on it
Oh yes look at that
Look at that!
the orange, the brown and the nearly black
it's that perfect roasti-ness. The smell is incredible
I'm just gonna make myself a little portion
A sprinkling of toasted almonds
Raisins... The parsley is great at this point because it puts a nice herby, fresh, grassy flavours
back into something that's starting to become quite sweet
So just a... Sprinkling
Last of all, the syrup and juice ... and the raisins
and just look at that, my sesame roast carrots, that would be the perfect side dish for any festive roast
Be it a turkey, a goose, maybe a nut roast, have actually become the stars of their own little Christmas show
What's come together as a delicious little vegetable, vegetarian, If you like, starter... so elegant
But above all... just delicious
Well I reckon the humble carrot has never been so christmassy and rarely so tasty
If you agree you can give us a thumbs up, you can comment in the box below and of course...
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and don't forget that this and many other delicious festive recipes can all be found in River Cottage light and easy
Merry Christmas Foodtubers... time to tuck in...