French Gourmet Side Dish Carrot Puree Recipe
Gourmet Carrot Puree Side Dish
This French-inspired gourmet carrot purée recipe is a delicious dinner side dish with excellent flavor and presentation. It pairs well with a variety of entrees and is perfect for sharing. The vibrant orange color and the ability to shape the purée into different forms enhance its elegant presentation on the table. The flavor of this carrot side dish is elevated with garlic, heavy cream, and butter. It complements various meat dishes, including beef, chicken, and pork, making it a versatile addition to any meal.
A French-Inspired Gourmet Dinner Side Dish
The basis of this French-inspired recipe and method for rendering the liquid from the carrots is adapted from Jacques Pepin's book Complete Techniques, from Technique One Hundred and Six, Purée of Carrots (Purée de Carottes). This technique uses cheesecloth to drain the carrot pulp of liquid, which takes about 2 hours for the fluid to drain. This French recipe is flavored with heavy cream, sweet butter, salt, and white pepper.
A quick Gourmet Carrot Purée
I use a more aggressive, quicker method. A clean dish towel holds and tightly binds cooked carrots puréed in a food processor. The carrots are rendered of liquid by twisting the dish towel with a large wooden spoon handle to compress the cooked carrots tightly. You end up with a vibrant carrot pulp ready to absorb additional ingredients to further the flavor and texture. When carrot pulp rendered of liquid is appropriately seasoned, the resulting dinner side dish is a flavorful, shapeable, and shareable vibrant orange carrot purée.
Ingredients For Carrot Puree
2 pounds of carrots
1 can (10.5 oz) Canned, Condensed - Beef Consommé
4 cups of water
2 bay leaves
1/3 cup heavy cream
2 tbsp unsalted butter
2 cloves of garlic
1/4 tsp white pepper or black pepper
1/4 tsp sea salt
Instructions For Gourmet Carrot Purée Recipe
Start with peeled carrots, cut into equal-sized pieces. The pieces of the same size help them cook at the same rate.
Using a large stock pot, place the carrot pieces into four cups of boiling water, add one can of condensed beef consommé, and add two bay leaves. Cook the carrots for 30 minutes with a cover on the pot.
With a spider strainer, remove the cooked carrots and spread them out on a clean cutting board to cool. Reserve 1/4 cup of the seasoned cooking liquid in a measuring cup and allow it to cool.
Add the cooked and cooled carrot pieces and the reserved cooking liquid to a food processor. Run the food processor for several minutes to purée the carrots. The carrots should be smooth and paste-like without small pieces.
Bundle the puréed mixture into a clean dish or finely woven strong cheesecloth towel and tie the ends around a wooden spoon.
Twist the bundle to extract as much liquid as possible. This may require considerable hand strength, twisting, and squeezing. Typically, I apply pressure to the bundle for a few minutes, then let it hang over a bowl to drain for about 5 minutes, followed by a more forceful squeezing to remove excess liquid.
Once the carrot pulp is adequately drained, it should be stiff and self-supporting when you pull a clump from the bundle.
Melt the butter in a small pot and lightly sauté the garlic, then add the heavy cream, pepper, and salt.
Use a rubber spatula to incorporate the carrot pulp into the liquid mixture. As the ingredients are combined, the mixture will lighten and develop a vibrant orange color.
Shape the carrot purée on your serving dish using an offset spatula.
Rendering the liquid from the carrots
Carrot pulp for puree
Gourmet carrot puree with black pepper
Pairing Carrot Puree with Your Entree
A gourmet carrot puree complements beef entrees beautifully. Consider serving it alongside our Sirloin Steak Tips with Madeira Sauce as a shareable side dish.
Another great option is a beef filet paired with potatoes and carrot puree. For inspiration, French Heritage Cuisine's Savory Duck Fat Zip Sauce Recipe is plated with this gourmet carrot puree.
Recipe Variants and Substitutions for Gourmet Carrot Puree
The carrot pulp itself has a mild flavor, so the final flavor depends on the seasonings used in the cream and butter mixture. You can try seasoning variations in the recipe.
The dry seasonings can be salt and pepper or a seasoning mix, such as Aromat dry seasoning or another balanced dry seasoning herb blend. The Aromat seasoning is yellow and blends well, complementing the orange carrot color. You can substitute the salt in the recipe with 1 tsp of Aromat. The Aromat does not have pepper, so it is best to keep it in addition to the Aromat.
Other dry seasoning options include granulated garlic, which enhances the garlic flavor, in addition to the fresh garlic in the recipe. Granulated garlic or dehydrated garlic powder has a different flavor profile than fresh garlic and adds additional garlic flavor notes to the puree.
To note about appearance, black pepper will show in the puree; you can use white pepper if you do not like the appearance of the black specks in the final puree. But the black pepper specks can add some visual contrast to the vivid orange carrot puree.
I have also substituted half-and-half (equal parts cream and milk) for heavy cream. While I achieved favorable results, the downside is that the puree's ability to be easily shaped and smoothed is not as good as that of heavy cream.
