Carrot
Carrots are more than good for your eyes. This humble vegetable plays a role in many dishes, present in nearly every sauce, used almost as often as parsley.
Carrot
(daucus carota)
Umbelliferae
Carrots are root vegetables with attractive bright orange engorged roots and pretty green leaves, similar to ferns. They are supposed to be good for your eyes. Carrots are considered to be “rabbit food” probably because of one famous bunny but the label has stuck. Many humans like carrots too and they are good for more than just the eyes. Carrots can be bought all year around. If you get them from the farmer’s market, they will probably be bunched together by the green tops like they were just pulled out of the ground.
Carrot Trivia
Did you know that carrots were not always orange? Yeah, it’s like finding out that the sky was originally another color. Anyway, they used to be white, purple, and yellow. About 500 years ago, the orange carrot came along. Therea are white or beige carrots still growing wild in Europe.
Greeks and Romans listed carrots as medicinal plants, but they do not seem to have used them as food. There is evidence of carrots used as food only by the end of the Middle Ages.Carrots were used by early settlers in the Colonies as a remedy for stomach ailments. Ladies in Charles I court liked to wear carrot leaves as ornament..
Nutritional Value
A serving is 1 cup (140g) of raw diced or grated carrot. Carrots have 23 calories per 100g only.Eaten raw, the carrot maintains all the nutrients that it contains: potassium, beta carotene, which is a form of vitamin A, a good deal of vitamin C, iron, and calcium; don't forget fiber, carrots have a fairly high content. Although the latest research shows carotene is best absorbed in the body when carrots are cooked.
Carrots are a mild vegetable and easy to digest that is why it is often one of the first pureed vegetables used for babies and recommended in soft diets, to help the sick recover from many kinds of abdominal problems. it is astringent and it will help to set the body right after a bout of diarrhea.
Storage
Choose carrots that are firm and feel heavy for their size. Avoid carrots that are flexible and bendy but don’t snap when broken.
Some carrots are already cleaned and chopped and put into plastic bags for purchase in the store. These are okay if you plan on eating them fairly soon. The packages usually have an expiration date on them. Carrots are like other veggies and fruits that shouldn’t be cleaned until ready to eat them.
- Fridge – Carrots are best stored in the refrigerator. They keep for quite a while before succumbing to wilting and browning.
Preparation and use
Carrots are mostly eaten raw. Grab a carrot, wash it off, clip the top and tip and munch to your heart’s content. Raw carrot has a crunchy texture and a slightly swee flavor, grate them into salads or slice them vertically, like thick sticks, and they make excellent crudités served with a dip.
Carrots can also be cooked. They hold up well on the stove and for baking. They are present in soups and stews in slices or diced cubes. Carrots are one of those vegetables that take longer to soften so they, along with potatoes are added to soups early to give them time to tenderize. Simmer them to tender simplicity in a carrot and potato soup - children love this - or the delicious elegance of a Crécy soup.
They are now a common vegetable served boiled or steammed on the side of the main course. As a side dish carrots are another orange fixture, rivaling the yam and the sweet potato. They can be eaten as is with a sprig of oregano or other herb or candied with honey or brown sugar.
Recipes
Casseroles and soups : carrot, celery and onion casserole - traditional menestra.
On the side: garden rainbow coleslaw - curried coleslaw with apples and raisins - glazed carrots and parsnips.
Elegant: chilled carrot cream - turkey and vegetables terrine.
Sweet: banana and carrot cake - carrot and apple sauce muffins - carrot truffles - lemon balm and carrot sorbet.
Carrot - daucus carota - carrot.
|