Baby carrots—cute enough to eat
It isn’t often that we get something in the test kitchen that makes us squeal from cuteness. Lettuce, onions, and rosemary? Not cute. M...
These preemie carrots were delivered to the test kitchen yesterday from Johanna, our test garden gal. I love the trio of colors, especially the dark purple. I asked Jo for a bit more info. She said that they are a new variety for 2011 and she got the seeds from Renee’s. I had never seen carrots this small. Johanna said she picked them early because she needed to thin them.
Really cute, but really dirty. I went to work washing the handful I had. If you think a little carrot wouldn’t take long to clean, you’d be wrong. Since I wanted to serve them with the tops attached so they’d have a handle (some say they’re edible, but I’ll refrain from commenting on that for now), I needed to dig out all the dirt that gets trapped at the base of the green. On a normal-sized carrot, you could just lightly scrape this area with a paring knife and then rinse under cold water. Since these little guys are so small, I practically needed a magnifying glass to see what I was doing. Thirty minutes later, I was done, cross-eyed, and the carrots were ready for the red carpet.
They were tasty on their own, but we like to make things special here at Sunset. I mixed up a few things for a dip to serve on the side. Now they’re gone from a cute vegetable to a gourmet party snack.
Here’s what I made:
1/2 cup whole-milk Greek yogurt
3 tbsp. minced red onion
2 tbsp. chopped fresh tarragon (I heart carrots and tarragon)
1/2 tsp. each kosher salt and black pepper
If you’re wondering about those carrot tops, it’s a matter of great debate it seems. Read here for more info and feel free to share your own thoughts on the matter.
