Who said vegetables have to be boring?

We’ve all had the misfortune of eating vegetables that have been boiled into mush. Those are usually the kind you put on your plate to be polite before the tray is put in the corner to be forgotten for the rest of the meal. But what if we gave vegetables the attention they deserve? With enough love (and butter), you can give your vegetables a well-deserved makeover. In this dish, vibrant carrots are paired with a sweet and fragrant glaze for an easy and quick side dish that’s sure to give your holiday turkey a run for its money.

Glaze

"Glaze" is a term that means two different things, and it's important to be clear on which one is being discussed. First, there is a dessert glaze, which of course goes on cookies, cakes, and other dessert confectionaries; though delicious, this is not the glaze we are looking for (to paraphrase Obi Wan). Rather, we are talking about a savoury glaze for our carrots; perhaps still sweet, but with deeper flavors better suited forvegetables, meats, and legumes. They lend either a complimentary or contrasting flavor to the initial ingredient: honey glazed hams are a divine holiday meal, with the glaze accenting the richness of the pork; glazing broccoli after it has roasted can balance the dark roast of the vegetable with the acidity orsweetness of a glaze.

Other ingredients you can glaze are:

• Cauliflower
• Parsnips
• Beets
• Turnips
• Rutabegas
• Brussels sprouts
• Chicken
• Fish (even pouring still simmering glaze over a fresh fish fillet might be enough to cook it)
• Pork
• Beans

For this recipe, we chose to glaze carrots.

One of the best descriptions of glazed carrots comes from Julia Child:

"Glazed carrots receive the same type of cooking process as braised carrots; the only difference is that they are cooked in stock instead of water, and more butter and sugar are used so that the liquid reduces to a syrupy glaze in the bottom of the pan".

We deviated from Mrs. Child's description somewhat; we parboiled our carrots to maintain some of their crunch, and made our glaze separately with balsamic vinegar, sugar, butter, and ginger.

The glazes themselves are a wonderful playground for trying new ingredients: For example, you could also add wine, sherry, or another spirit to the glaze and reduce until the alcohol is cooked off (Bourbon is divine). You could also steep kombu in boiling water, remove the kombu, make amiso slurry, and reduce all that with butter, sugar and rice vinegar for a Japanese inspired flavor. There are many directions one can take with a basic glaze: start with favourite flavors, then branch out from there.

Blanching and Parboiling

The idea of boiling vegetables usually conjures up images of the sad, flavourless sides we talked about at the beginning of this post. However, methods like blanching and parboiling can be the first step to success with your vegetables. Blanching is a process that involves cooking something (usually a fruit or vegetable) in boiling water for a short time before plunging it in cold water to stop cooking. This method sets the colour of the vegetable and preserves its texture since it hasn’t been cooked all the way through. This can be used as preparation for further cooking or for immediate eating. Blanching is often used to prepare green beans in order to avoid a final dull green colour and keep that delightful snap. It can also be used to make the process of skinning fruits andvegetables like tomatoes easier. Parboiling is similar to blanching, but involves getting a sort of head-start on cooking before using other methods. For example, boiling vegetables can be a great way to reduce the time it takes to roast them while preserving some of their colour and texture. You can also parboil then fry potatoes for French fries instead of the double-fry method. In this recipe, we use a kind of mix of blanching and parboiling to prep ou rcarrots for our glaze. This way, we avoid the dreaded mush while keeping your dinner prep simple.

How to make it

Prep your carrots

Prepare your carrots by peeling and trimming them. Next cut them into large sticks about the size of French fries or what you would find on a vegetable tray. This is called "baton" (French for "stick"). The large pieces of carrot helps to avoid overcooking.

Parboil

In a pot, bring salted water to a boil and add your carrots. Cook the carrots in the water until they are slightly cooked, but still have some texture. This took about 3 minutes for us, but the cooking time can vary depending on the size of your carrots. If you are prepping the carrots ahead of time, submerge them in an ice bath, drain, then store in the fridge until you are ready to eat.

Make your glaze

In a pan, melt your butter over medium heat then add your minced ginger.

Cook for about 2 minutes or until the ginger is fragrant, then add the brown sugar and balsamic vinegar.

Keep cooking your glaze, stirring often, until the glaze is thickened and can coat the back of a spoon.

Add your carrots, toss in the glaze until the are well-coated, then serve.