Orange Crush

Cauliflower, step back. It is time to make room for carrots to take center stage.

After reading this article it will be hard not to fall in love with the incredibly versatile carrot!

Photo Source: Bon Appetit

For a chef committed to local ingredients, planning a winter menu can be a challenge. Even tougher? Opening a restaurant in the middle of December, when fall produce is long gone at farmers’ markets in the colder parts of the country. But if anyone is up for the challenge, it’s Carmen Quagliata, the executive chef at Union Square Cafe, which reopened in December after a year closure.

Drawing on inspiration from a favorite snack of pickled carrots and Parmesan, Quagliata created an addictive carrot-pasta dish of candele, a chewy, wide-tube dried pasta, with sweet roast carrots, hot Fresno chiles, savory and salty pancetta, and refreshingly tangy Greek yogurt. “It’s the most commented-on [dish]” on his new menu, he says, “and surprisingly loved.”

Craving it days after trying it ourselves, we knew we had to make a carrot pasta of our own. In our version, linguine cooks in carrot juice before undergoing a royal treatment of carrot-top pesto and pickled carrot shavings (see the recipe). Apologies in advance if you don’t want to cook any other pasta dish all winter long.

Between this recipe and the inventive ways chefs across the country are putting the root to work, you’re about to discover a whole new appreciation for the humble carrot.

Read full article here.