Carrots cooked in butter, red wine, bay, star anise and cinnamon

Autumn

Carrots, like so many of our favourite root vegetables, can be cooked, or not cooked, in a thousand wonderful ways and this is one of them. The whole process happens very slowly, at a gentle heat.
I wanted to create something similar to the carrots you’d find in a beef stew after hours of lazy simmering, but in this case without the beef. Star anise and cinnamon complement the sweetness of the carrots, and the red wine and butter give you a beautiful, rich sauce.

Serves 4 as a side

Ingredients

12 carrots
6 shallots, halved
2 smallish garlic bulbs, halved around their circumference
4–6 bay leaves
2 star anise
¼ cinnamon stick (about 2–3cm/¾–1¼in)
2 tsp black peppercorns
2 tsp coriander seeds
Good pinch of chilli flakes (optional)
300ml (10½fl oz) red wine
50g (1¾oz) unsalted butter
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

Heat the oven to 140°C/120°C fan/275°F/gas mark 1.

Scrub the carrots or peel them if the skins are overly tough. Place them in
a medium roasting tin in a flattish layer and nestle in the shallot halves and the garlic halves. Add the bay leaves and spices and pour over the wine. Dot the butter over the top and cover the tin nice and tightly with foil, so as to keep in all the steam as the carrots cook. Bake gently for 3 hours, carefully turning the vegetables once or twice during cooking and each time neatly reinstating the foil. After 3 hours, the carrots should be fork-tender and the sauce rich and buttery.

Season with salt and pepper and bring to the table. I like to serve them with mashed potatoes or a simple couscous salad with plenty of chopped parsley.

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