Daily Life | Cooking with Carrot Tops
The goal of this round of cooking was "delicious, and the flavour of the greens is easy for anyone to accept". It wasn't only about making a dish and feeling pleased with my zero-waste cooking, but also about keeping in mind the different food preferences of the family eating with me.
No. 1: as a seasoning, with roasted carrots
"Roasted carrots" is a very common Western side dish: toss them with balsamic vinegar, honey and olive oil at 2:2:1, add salt and pepper to taste, and roast at 200°C for 30–40 minutes, checking and turning the carrots over in between. The key is to get the skin caramelised. The amounts of seasoning and the roasting time depend on the amount and size of the carrots. I like carrots soft enough that a fork goes through easily. My family said it tastes like honey sweet potato!
The version with carrot tops is a variation based on NOT ANOTHER COOKING SHOW. First toss the carrots with olive oil, garlic (with the skin on), thyme, salt and pepper and roast them. Then mix olive oil, lemon juice and honey at 2:2:1 with chopped lemon zest, chopped carrot tops (no stems), parsley, salt and pepper, and pour it over the carrots when they come out of the oven.
Compared with the previous dish, this one is more of an appetiser: it has more character and is less friendly. The fresh flavour built on greens and lemon seems like something only adults can appreciate, and I believe the carrot tops, as one of the supporting players, can easily be accepted by adults.
No. 2: carrot-top salad (a failure)
A recipe I found by randomly searching YouTube: chop carrot tops (no stems), tomatoes and garlic, mix with salt, pepper, lemon and orange juice (any citrus works), and you have a raw salad that's easy to serve!
First of all, the minced garlic was too spicy, so no matter what, make sure to leave this ingredient out. The rest is very simple: basically a lemon/orange-juice-based salad that doesn't hide the flavour of the carrot tops at all, so people who don't like "grassy" flavours will take three steps back from this salad. And I think most people probably can't accept it...
Personally I think a salad is a dish that shows off the original taste of the ingredients, and as an ordinary person I'm not able to make a salad without the original taste of the ingredients (and doesn't that seem a bit like putting the cart before the horse?). People who can enjoy and are willing to try all kinds of "grassy" flavours can give it a go; I'm sure it brings a different salad experience, since you don't often get the chance to eat carrot tops.
No. 3: pesto, crowned the best way to use them up
The reference recipe is from LOVE&LEMONS. Besides the classic basil leaves and pine nuts, it offers lots of alternatives for the base ingredients of a pesto, including all kinds of leaves and nuts. A very useful article.
I added carrot tops, olive oil (quite a lot, because the blender couldn't handle it otherwise), minced garlic, cashews and almonds. The carrot tops don't stand out in the pesto, perhaps because their smell is somewhat softened by the other ingredients. I tried mixing it into a salad as a dressing, but it neither added nor took away anything, a bit boring.
After several attempts, I recommend eating it heated. After heating, the garlic flavour clearly comes out and becomes the star. It's great as a spread on baguette slices (I'd add a bit of butter too, super fatty but so satisfying), and as a pasta pesto there's no problem at all: compared to the classic basil pesto it could pass for the real thing, definitely the first choice for using up carrot tops!
Afterwards
- After looking up recipes and starting to cook, I found that most of them only use the leaves and still don't use the stems.
- I did this in the Netherlands. After proudly writing it all down, I realised that carrots bought in Taiwan usually don't come with their tops (I wonder if that's because they're imported, or just the custom after harvesting?), and the variety is different, with thicker stems and leaves, so I'll leave it to the brave to try on Taiwanese carrots XD!