braised carrots with pepitas and raisins

I like carrots, but Steven, not so much. For this reason, usually I skip them on my trips to the supermarkets. We’ve been sharing most of our meals together for quite a while now. Sometimes we need to compromise, particularly when our tastes diverge. Things changed when I ‘discovered’ heirloom carrots.

There is one particular type that I really like: the Nantes, named after the French city in the Loire region. It is bright orange, thin, sweet, earthy, succulent and crunchy. I just love eating them raw. The farmers markets here in San Francisco offer these and many other kinds of heirloom varieties with a broad array of colors and shapes available all year around. If you haven’t tried other carrots besides the standard large orange kind or the appalling and ubiquitous “baby carrot” then I encourage you to branch out. You’ll be surprised and probably delighted with the whole spectrum of flavors, colors and textures stimulating your taste buds! Whenever I shop at farmers markets I make sure I bring some home. These heirloom carrots are available at our local Trader Joe’s but the flavor and freshness are inconsistent. They still taste better than the conventional ones, so I get them there when I can’t get to the farmers market.

some heirloom carrots from the farmers market

This time around I decided to cook these succulent roots instead of eating them raw. This dish is inspired by a vegetarian cookbook, Silk Road Cooking: A Vegetarian Journey by Najmieh Batmanglij. I bought it a couple of years ago on a wine tour to the very fancy Darioush winery on Silverado Trail in Napa Valley. It boasts an Iranian theme complete with reconstructions of ancient Persian statuary at the entrance. Really it was very impressive. You’re almost fooled into thinking that you’re in the ancient Middle East only to wake up and realize that you’re actually in some kind of Northern Californian Disneyland for adults. But that’s pretty cool too.

Back to earth now, I was very pleased with the end result of this vegan carrot recipe. By the time the dish was ready the air in the house was permeated with sweet, tart and spicy aromas. To me, this was redolent of a Middle Eastern, Near Eastern, Indian or Moroccan kitchen at meal time. Back to dreaming at Darioush! We ate our carrot creation with mushroom flavored rice, but you could have it with couscous, quinoa, pasta, on sandwiches, over crackers and so on and on.

Here’s my adaptation:

Braised Carrots with Raisins and Pepitas

1 ½ lb Nantes carrots
1 large onion cut into thin slices
1 cup raisins
1 cup pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
1 Jalapeño or Serrano pepper, minced, seeds and ribs removed
1 Jalapeño or Serrano pepper split in half, seeds and ribs removed from one of the halves
4 ripe roma/plum tomatoes skin removed and sliced*
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
¼ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp sugar
¼ tsp ground coriander
½ tsp ground cumin
Pinch saffron threads (marinated in 2 tbsp warm water for 5 minutes)
2 tsp tomato paste
4 cloves of garlic minced
3/4 cup water
3 Tbsp olive oil

How to:
Adjust your mandolin to spaghetti thickness and pass carrots though it.
Warm one tbsp olive oil in a deep pan; add raisins, pepitas and sauté for about a minute. Raisins will puff up a bit. Transfer to a bowl and reserve. Add remaining olive oil and sliced onion to same pan and sauté for about 15 minutes on medium or till onions turn golden brown but not burned. Add garlic, carrots, Jalapeño peppers and cook for 8-10 minutes.

Add tomatoes, tomato paste, salt, black pepper, cinnamon, coriander, cumin, saffron, sugar and cook for about 5 minutes stirring constantly till all ingredients have been incorporated. Add water. Bring mixture to a boil then reduce heat to medium. Cover pan and cook for approximately 15 minutes. Just before serving mix carrots, raisin and pepitas together.

dreaming of Darioush

*to remove skin cut tomato tops off, make a cross cut at the bottom, dip them in hot water for ½ to 1 minute. The skin will curl. Remove from pan, cool and peel.