IN THE KITCHEN : The Quest for the Perfect Carrot

I’ll take my vegetables cooked, thank you. That may not seem a radical sentiment, but of the many odd phases the cooking world has gone through in the last 20 years or so, the one I have the hardest time understanding is the determined effort by so many cooks to serve vegetables nearly raw.

Since when did crispness become, in and of itself, a desirable attribute? It’s fine for potato chips and pastries, but I prefer my carrots cooked. At many restaurants they call the vegetables al dente , but if you were to cook spaghetti to that doneness, the strands would still be straight when you put them on the plate.

Granted, for many years things were taken to the opposite extreme--my mom used to cook fresh green beans literally for hours, with ham hocks, and then serve them, khaki-colored and swimming in their cooking liquid, on pumpernickel bread. They sure didn’t taste like green beans . . . but they sure didn’t taste bad, either.

Carrots are almost always served undercooked these days. Raw carrots, staples of diet plates across the country, are crisp, but they aren’t very sweet and I find their flavor bitter and green--kind of like eating parsley straight.

So I decided to run a little experiment. I pulled a couple of fat storage carrots out of the refrigerator, peeled them and sliced them on the bias about 1/4-inch thick. I covered them with cold water and brought them to a boil, then reduced the heat to a mere simmer.

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After five minutes, just as the water began to boil, the water picked up a little orange color and a little orange scum floated to the top. A slice tasted at this point was still hard and raw-tasting. At 10 minutes, the carrots had picked up a fairly bright color, but were still hard with a raw flavor. At 15 minutes, the steam started smelling like carrots and the orange was even brighter, with the core distinctly pale. The texture was just at the hard edge of tender-crisp, with a little give, and the flavor was a tad sweeter, though still a bit green. After 20 minutes, the slices began to look a little “fuzzy,” as the cells began to swell and take up water. Here was the soft edge of tender-crisp. The carrots were now distinctly sweet, with little “green” flavor. Just about perfect.

After 30 minutes, the carrots started going squishy and the taste was less vivid. At 35 minutes, you could cut through one with the dull side of a knife and they started tasting tired. After 40 minutes, you could squish a slice between your fingers and after 45, they were just about mousse. These tasted like the carrots you get in some cafeterias.

Of course, the kind of carrots you use is important too. Much is made of baby carrots, but these are full of pitfalls for unwary cooks. Those plastic-bagged “baby” carrots you find in the grocery store--no matter how perfectly shaped and sized they are--aren’t really babies. Their very uniformity should be a clue; this doesn’t happen in nature. Almost without exception, these are big storage carrots that have cracked either in growing, harvesting or handling and are then pitched into a machine that grinds and sands them down to the perfect shape. What you usually end up with is a perfectly shaped woody core.

Of course, the only baby carrots you should consider using aren’t true babies either. They are fully mature varieties that are bred for smaller size. If you were to eat a true baby carrot, you would find the center core would still be green and the carrot would taste more like a carrot top.

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The carrots you want to look for are fully mature--miniature or otherwise--but not so old that they are mostly core. I don’t know if it is scientifically provable, but it seems to me that carrots with hard, pale peels are usually older than those with waxy-looking, deep-orange peels.

With carrots in mind, I visited Annie’s produce stand at the point of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, just above Abalone Cove. Not only does this have the best view of any vegetable stand in the world, it has great carrots too.

We were having a big dinner that night for visiting relatives, so I bought a bunch of carrots, took them home and peeled them and cooked them in a tightly covered saute pan with butter, a couple of whole garlic cloves and enough white wine to barely cover. After about 20 minutes, when the carrots were approaching the far end of tender-crisp and the wine was almost evaporated, I added a couple of fresh sage leaves (not too many--fresh sage quickly overpowers anything in its way), turned up the heat and tossed the carrots until they were glazed and beginning to turn a caramelized golden on the outside. Then I served them with chicken roasted with lemons and some oven-roasted potatoes.

I thought I had done it: perfectly cooked carrots, soft enough you could easily cut through them with a fork, but with a thread of crisp at the center. Take that, you raw vegetable freaks.

And then came a voice from the end of the table: “Doesn’t anybody cook carrots around here?”

NOT-TOO-CRISP CARROTS

1 pound carrots, peeled

3 tablespoons butter

1 clove garlic

1 1/2 cups white wine

4 leaves fresh sage

Salt, pepper

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Slice carrots either on bias or in sticks 1/4-inch thick. It is important that pieces be relatively equally sized so all will be done at about the same time.

Heat butter and garlic clove in large skillet over medium heat. When butter fizzes and dies down, add carrots. Stir to coat well with butter and cook 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add wine and bring to boil. Cover tightly with lid and reduce heat to medium-low. Shake pan occasionally to keep carrots from sticking.

After another 5 minutes, uncover carrots and test for doneness with point of paring knife. Knife should slip fairly easily into carrot, but there should be some resistance. If carrots are not done, re-cover and continue cooking.

When carrots are done, remove lid, add sage and raise heat to high. Cook over high heat, frequently stirring and shaking pan to keep from sticking, until liquid has reduced and carrots are shiny. Remove garlic clove. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add lemon juice to heighten flavor. Makes 6 servings.

Each serving contains about:

125 calories; 139 mg sodium; 16 mg cholesterol; 6 grams fat; 9 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram protein; 0.85 gram fiber.