You’ll need:
1 pound Carrots
1 tablespoon Butter
1 tablespoon Brown sugar
A pinch of salt
Your tools:
Knife
Cutting board
Steamer
Pot with lid
Tablespoon
Pot holder
To start making your glazed carrots, first place a steamer in your pot. If you don’t own a steamer, then fear not, a simple strainer will also do the trick.
Add water until it almost touches the bottom of the steamer but not quite so that the carrots will be steamed and not boiled. Put the lid on the pot and set it on the stove to boil.
As you wait for your water to boil, wash your carrots and cut off any blemishes. When buying your carrots, choose whole ones rather than baby carrots because they’ll give your dish better flavor. Cut the carrots diagonally so that they’ll make for a more aesthetically pleasing dish when you serve them.
When the water reaches boiling point, carefully take the lid off the pot so as to avoid getting your hands and face burned by the steam, which can cause more severe injury than boiling hot water.
If the carrots are left on the stove for too long, they’ll turn out mushy, so check on them regularly to ensure that they’ll be tender.
After you deem the carrots tender and ready, turn off the burner and use a pot holder to remove the steamer from the pot.
Pour the water out of the pot so you can use it to make the sauce. Measure about one tablespoon of butter into the pan and put the heat on low for a minute or two, just until the butter is completely melted.
Turn off the heat and add approximately one tablespoon of brown sugar and just a pinch of salt to the butter. Stirwith a fork until the mixture has a smooth consistency without any lumps.
Add your carrots and stir so that the sauce coats each and every piece. Use some chopped parsley or basil to garnish it. The finished dish serves about four people, but you can double, triple or increase the amount by 2.5 using your math skills.
To add your own touch to this dish, you can always substitute honey or maple syrup in place of the brown sugar to give it a richer flavor. If you’re looking for a kick, spice up your candied carrots with a couple tablespoons of mustard or some ground black pepper.
If you are up for a bigger challenge and want a dish you can make the day before, check out Chef Emeril Lagasse’s recipe for Fresh Cranberry Compote, which is French for “mixture,” at foodnetwork.com. It’s a great alternative to plain old canned cranberry sauce.