Jamie Oliver Ultimate Carrots Food

GLAZED CARROTS

Steps:

• 1. Trim and wash the carrots, leaving a little of the green tops on so they look pretty.
• 2. Melt the butter and the dripping, if you've got it, in a large frying pan over a medium heat. Crush the unpeeled garlic cloves with the flat side of your knife, then add to the pan, turning after 1 minute. 3. Sprinkle in the thyme sprigs (they'll crackle a bit), squeeze in the clementine juice and add the honey, bay and a splash of water. 4. Add the carrots, sprinkle with a good pinch of sea salt and black pepper, then jiggle the pan to coat them in all that flavour. 5. Cover, reduce the heat to medium-low and cook for 10 to 15 minutes, or until the carrots are tender. 6. When the time's up, uncover the pan and, being very vigilant, simply reduce the moisture away until you get a beautiful clementine glaze and the carrots start to catch and caramelize in a lovely way, turning often. 7. Once you think they look great, simply serve straight away, or you can remove them from the heat and crack on with your other jobs, reheating them when needed. Delicious.

CARROTS

Steps:

• Carrots boiled with orange, garlic and herbs: Boil the carrots in salted boiling water with a tablespoon of sugar, a knob of butter and a little handful of fragrant herbs, tied up. Parsley, rosemary, thyme, bay - use just one or a mixture. Cut an orange into eighths and add them to the water, along with a few whole garlic cloves in their skins. If you really want to be a little tiger, add a pinch of cumin as well (seeds or ground) - it subtly cuts through with the most wonderful flavour. As soon as the carrots are cooked, drain them, discard the herbs and all but one of the orange pieces, squeeze the garlic out of its skin, chop the remaining orange piece finely and toss with the carrots, some seasoning and a little more butter. The flavour will be incredible.
• Another idea is to fry the chopped-up orange in a good tablespoon of sugar, so it almost jammifies, and serve this on top of the carrots. These two flavours together are one of the coolest things.
• Or, roasted carrots with orange, garlic and thyme: just as easy - as soon as you drain the carrots you can throw them into a baking tray with the chopped-up orange and the garlic cloves and roast them at 200°C/400°F/gas 6 for 10 minutes - this will give you a slightly meatier flavour.
• Or simply mash the carrots up with the orange and garlic, so you have some coarse and some smooth. Lovely.

THE ULTIMATE CARROTS

Steps:

• Peel the carrots, then you can chop, quarter or halve them, but I like to leave them whole with the tops on. Don't worry, this recipe will work however you prep them so just get them ready your favourite way.
• Place the carrots in a large, wide pan and just cover with cold water. Add a good pinch of sea salt and a pinch of black pepper, the clementine juice (you can use oranges instead, if you prefer), vinegar and butter.
• Bring to the boil and cook for 20 minutes, or until nearly all the liquid has evaporated.
• Once the butter starts to glaze the carrots, add the thyme sprigs and reduce the heat to low. Cook for 5 minutes, or until caramelised and delicious.

BAKED CARROTS WITH CUMIN, THYME, BUTTER AND CHARDONNAY

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Tear off around 5feet of kitchen foil and fold it in half to give you double thickness. Place everything but the wine and seasoning in the middle of the foil. Bring up the sides and pour in the white wine. Season well. Fold or scrunch the foil together to seal. Cook in the preheated oven for 45 minutes until the carrots are tender. You may need to cook it for longer if the carrots are bigger than baby ones;

AMAZING PICKLED AND MARINATED VEGETABLES

Steps:

• Make sure you have some small sterilized jars ready to go. Bring the pickling liquid ingredients to the boil in a big pan. Put the pickling marinade ingredients into a large bowl with your chosen herbs and mix well. Slice up your chosen vegetables any way you like, but if it's a larger vegetable try to get the pieces around 1/2-inch in thickness. This way, the flavors and pickling liquid will penetrate sufficiently. Smaller vegetables, like mushrooms or very small onions, can be left whole.
• Place the sliced vegetables in the boiling pickling liquid and leave for around 3 minutes - they'll probably rise to the surface, so keep pushing them down to ensure they are all immersed. Lift the pieces out with a slotted spoon and place them into your bowl of pickling marinade. Toss together - it will smell fantastic.
• Pretty much straightaway, put the hot vegetables and pickling marinade into your sterilized jars, filling them to the very top. Cover the vegetables completely with the marinade and put the lids on tightly. Put the jars aside until they're cool. Clean the jars, attach sticky labels and write the date and the contents on them. Store the jars somewhere cool and dark - it's best to leave them for about 2 weeks before opening so the vegetables really get to marinate well, but if you absolutely cannot wait, you can eat them sooner. They'll keep for about 3 months - but they're so bloody good I'm lucky if the jars last for a couple of weeks in our house!
• "Our agreement with the producers of "Jamie at Home" only permit us to make 2 recipes per episode available online. Food Network regrets the inconvenience to our viewers and foodnetwork.com users"
• Choose 1 of the following vegetable and herb options: .

THE MOTHERSHIP TOMATO SALAD

Steps:

• This is an incredible tomato salad but there are two things to remember if you want to wow your guests with something so simple. The first is that you should try to get a mixture of different, tasty, local (if possible) tomatoes in all different shapes, sizes and colors. Second, the flavor is brought out by salting the tomatoes, so don't skip this bit. Some people get worried about putting this much salt on their food, but the bulk of it will drip off, leaving you with really beautiful, intensely flavored tomatoes.
• If you can get hold of some dried flowering oregano then do, as it has the most heavenly flavor. Feel free to use the dried stuff that you get in a little container, but it can taste a bit like sawdust when compared to the fruity, fragrant flavor you get from the flowering variety. Oregano is also great to grow in the garden.
• Depending on the size of your tomatoes, slice some in half, some into quarters and others into uneven chunks. Straightaway this will give you the beginnings of a tomato salad that's really brave and exciting to look at and eat. Put the tomatoes into a colander and season with a good pinch of sea salt.
• Give them a toss, season again and give a couple more tosses. The salt won't be drawn into the tomatoes; instead it will draw any excess moisture out, concentrating all the lovely flavors. Leave the tomatoes in the colander on top of a bowl to stand for around 15 minutes, then discard any juice that has come out of them.
• Transfer the tomatoes to a large bowl and sprinkle over the oregano. Make a dressing using 1 part vinegar to 3 parts oil, the garlic and the chile. Drizzle the tomatoes with enough dressing to coat everything nicely.
• This is a fantastic tomato salad, which is totally delicious to eat on its own. It's also great served with some balls of mozzarella or some nice, grilled ciabatta bread.
• "Our agreement with the producers of "Jamie at Home" only permit us to make 2 recipes per episode available online. Food Network regrets the inconvenience to our viewers and foodnetwork.com users"