Authentic To Stew Carrots, 1860

donna

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Forum Host
Joined
May 12, 2010
Location
Now Florida but always a Kentuckian
512px-CarrotRoots.jpg
CarrotRoots
Jonathunder [GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html)], via Wikimedia Commons


This recipe for stewed carrots is from "Civil war Recipes Receipts from the Pages of Godey's Lady's Book". For carrot lovers like me, this is a delicious way to fix carrots.

Half boil the carrots, then scrape them nicely, and cut them into thick slices; put them into a stewpan, with as much milk as will barely cover them; a very little salt and pepper, and a sprig or two of chopped parsley; simmer them till they are perfectly tender, but not broken, when nearly done, add a piece of fresh butter rolled in flour. Send them to the table hot. Carrots requite long cooking.

An interesting history of carrots with recipes is at:
http://www.carrotmuseum.co.uk/history6.html
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Maybe wash the carrots down with.....

Asparagus Pudding

Ingredients
  1. 1/2 pint of asparagus
  2. 4 eggs
  3. 2 tablespoonfuls of flour
  4. 1 tablespoonful of very finely minced ham
  5. 1 oz. of butter
  6. pepper to taste
  7. salt to taste
  8. milk

Directions
  1. Cut up the nice green tender parts of asparagus, about the size of peas
  2. Cut them into a basin with the eggs, which should be well beaten, and the flour, ham, butter, pepper, and salt
  3. Mix all these ingredients well together, and moisten with sufficient milk to make the pudding of the consistency of thick batter
  4. Put it into a pint buttered mould, tie it down tightly with a floured cloth
  5. Place it in boiling water, and let it boil for 2 hours
  6. Turn it out of the mould on to a hot dish, and pour plain melted butter round, but not over

Source: The Book of Household Management by Isabella Beeton (1859)
 
I'm surprised the carrot museum didn't catch the compote recipe from Le Menagier de Paris, which is the earliest carrot recipe I know about. It's a 1393 book written by an elderly man for his teenaged bride. Note that carrots are still such a novelty that he has to explain what they are. This is an incredibly complicated recipe which takes half a year! I wonder if anyone's ever recreated it.

THIS IS THE WAY TO MAKE COMPOTE. Note that you must start by St. John's Day which is the twenty-fourth day of June.

First, take five hundred new walnuts, and be sure that neither the shell nor the kernel are yet formed and that the shell is also neither too hard nor too tender, and peel them all round, and then pierce them through or in a cross. And then put them to soak in water from the Seine or a spring, and change it every day: and they must soak ten to twelve days and they will become black and when you chew one you will not be able to taste any bitterness; and then put them on to boil in sweet water and let them boil just for the length of time it takes to say a Miserere, and until you see that there are none which are too hard or too soft. Then empty the water, and put them to drain on a screen, and then boil a sixth of honey or as much as they need to be all covered, and the honey should be strained and skimmed: and when it is cooled down to just warm, add your walnuts and leave them two or three days, and then put them to drain, and take as much of your honey as they can soak in, and put the honey on the fire and make it come to a good boil and skim it, and take it off the fire: and put in each hole in your walnuts a clove in one side and a little snip of ginger in the other, and then put them in the honey when it is lukewarm. And stir it two or three times a day, and at the end of three days take them out: and gather up the honey, and if there is not enough, add to it and boil and skim and boil, then put your walnuts in it; and thus each week for a month. And then leave them in an earthenware pot or a cask, and stir once a week.

Take, around All Saints Day (November 1), large turnips, and peel them and chop them in quarters, and then put on to cook in water: and when they are partially cooked, take them out and put them in cold water to make them tender, and then let them drain; and take honey and do the same as with the walnuts, and be careful not to over-cook your turnips.

Item, on All Saints, take carrots as many as you wish, and when they are well cleaned and chopped in pieces, cook them like the turnips. (Carrots are red roots which are sold at the Halles in baskets, and each basket costs one blanc.)

Item, take choke-pears and cut them in four quarters, and cook them like the turnips, and do not peel them; and do with them neither more nor less than with the turnips.

Item, when gourds are in season, take those which are neither too hard nor too tender, and peel them and remove the seeds and cut into quarters, and do the same to them as to the turnips.

Item, when peaches are in season, take the hardest and peel them and cut them up.

Item, around St. Andrew's Day, take roots of parsley and fennel, and scrape them, and chop them into small pieces, and split the fennel and remove the hard part, and do not do this to the parsley, and prepare them exactly the same way as told above, neither more nor less.

And when your preserves are ready, you can use them in the following recipe.

First, for five hundred walnuts, take a pound of mustard-seed and half a pound of anise, a quatrain and a half of fennel, a quatrain and a half of coriander, a quatrain and a half of caraway seed, which is a seed eaten in dragees, and grind all these things to powder: and then put all these things through the mustard mill and soak them thick in very good vinegar, and put in an earthenware pot. And then take half a pound of horse-radish, which is a root sold by herbalists, and scrape it thoroughly and chop it as small as you can and grind it in a mustard-mill, and moisten with vinegar. Item, take half a fourth of clove stem, half a fourth of meche ginger, half a fourth of nutmegs, half a fourth of grains of paradise, and grind them all to powder. Item, take half an ounce of saffron from Orte [a place-name] dried and beaten in an ounce of red cedar, a root bought at a herbalist's and called "cedar for making knife-handles". And then take twelve pounds of good honey which is hard and white and melt it on the fire, and when it is well-cooked and skimmed, let it sit, then strain it, and cook it again: and if it still produces scum, you will have to strain it again, if it is not convenient to let it cool; then moisten your mustard with good red wine and half as much vinegar and put in the honey. Soak your powdered spices in wine and vinegar and put in the honey, and boil your cedar pieces a little in hot wine, and then add the saffron with the other things, and another handful of coarse salt. Item, and after these things, take two pounds of grapes known as Digne grapes, which are small and have no seeds or pips inside, and which are fresh, and pound them thoroughly in a mortar and moisten in good vinegar, then strain through a strainer, and put with the other things. Item, if you add four or five pints of must or cooked wine, the sauce will be better.
 
I'm surprised the carrot museum didn't catch the compote recipe from Le Menagier de Paris, which is the earliest carrot recipe I know about. It's a 1393 book written by an elderly man for his teenaged bride. Note that carrots are still such a novelty that he has to explain what they are. This is an incredibly complicated recipe which takes half a year! I wonder if anyone's ever recreated it.
Holy long detailed recipes Batman!!!!
 
I have never tried to boil carrots in milk! I think it willgive them an epecially tender taste, but what about the color?
I always add a little milk when boiling cauliflower, because it will make it beautifully white, but carrots?
You learn something new here every day!
 
Back
Top