“How to Cook a Vegetable”, or “Further Proof that Orange Juice Can Do Anything”.

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Back when I worried with actually going to the gym three days a week, I read an article in a health magazine that proposed a reason why Americans don’t eat many vegetables. It talked about the fact the French people eat far more vegetables than Americans, and suggested that the reason behind this travesty has something to do with the way we prepare them as opposed to the French. Unfortunately, Americans have bought into the idea that the only right way to eat a veggie is cold and raw, thus deterring most of America from eating their 4-6 servings a day. (Come on, admit it: cold and raw is not really inviting, except to maybe Jillian from NBC’s The Biggest Loser. But she’s not real.) The French, on the other hand, know how to romance the vegetable with a little salt, olive oil, herbs, and yes – (GASP here) butter. The whole point of the article was that it is better to eat vegetables with a little butter or oil than no veggies at all. I mean, if you fill up on lots of yummy cooked veggies, the less likely you are to grab that second hamburger. The French are much healthier due to their steady diet of buttered ruffage, than we are with our bag of raw carrot sticks shriveling in the refrigerator.

I am wholeheartedly for this notion. As you all know by now, I am currently reading Julia Child’s biography, My Life In France. As I was reading it the other day, I was struck by her commitment to cooking everything the right way (adopting the French notion that there is a right way to cook everything – not just bread or cake or pastry.) In her quest to becoming the best chef she could be, she approached cooking each dish in a way that make it taste more like itself – celebrating the natural flavors of each main ingredient. Afterwards I was struck by my lack of knowledge on the subject of cooking vegetables. For pete’s sake, no wonder I don’t eat enough of the garden variety – all of my vegetables are either raw, or cooked to an unrecognizable state. So what did I do? I read up on cooking vegetables. (Nerd Alert.)

If anyone owns a copy of my favorite cookbook, The Joy of Cooking, you know that there is an entire section of vegetables and how to prepare them correctly. Turns out, there are plenty of tasty, and healthy ways to fix veggies: braising, roasting, steaming . . . I braised some carrots the other night in a little butter, brown sugar, water and salt and pepper. Boy Howdy, they were good. I need to have a talk with Jillian on the biggest loser and set her straight. After my rebirth into all things veggie, I was flipping through an old issue of Bon Appetit from the library, and I ran across this recipe for Roasted Carrots.

ORANGE-ROASTED BABY CARROTS WITH HONEY
1 1/2 pounds slender baby carrots, trimmed, scrubbed
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil plus additional for drizzling
1 teaspoon (packed) finely grated orange peel
1/3 cup fresh orange juice
1 1/2 tablespoons honey
Fleur de sel or Maldon sea salt*

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Place carrots in a single layer on a baking sheet. Add the olive oil, orange zest, salt and pepper and toss around to coat the carrots. Pour the orange juice over the carrots and cover the pan with foil. Roast until “crisp-tender” (10 minutes). Increase the oven’s temperature to 450 degrees. Remove the foil and drizzle the carrots with honey. Put back into the oven, uncovered, until the carrots are tender and are browning a little. (10 minutes). To serve, drizzle with additional olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt.

Bon Appetit, April 2007

NOTES: I can’t afford all those fancy, schmancy whole baby carrots with the tops still on. I chopped large, peeled carrots into eighths and roasted them that way. They were fine, although they required less time in the oven. I also substituted the Fleur de Sel with Kosher Salt, because it’s what I had.

I made these carrots to go along with the roasted pork loin I mentioned Monday. Orange Juice really does bring out the “carrot-ness” of the carrots (it doesn’t make them taste like oranges). Julia Child would be proud. I should say that I knew Orange Juice was pretty darned amazing, due to it’s recently-proven superiority as an accompaniment to Pizza. But I will let it go at that. No sense in bragging shamelessly.

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