Glazed Carrots with Guinness

The perfect side dish for St. Patrick’s Day

Corned beef and cabbage for St. Pat’s? You’ll need a side dish.

What better than these colorful (and nutritious!) Glazed Carrots with Guinness?

Eat your veggies in style. You’ll probably want seconds, too. Because beta-carotene, right?

Recipe: Glazed Carrots with Guinness

Glazed carrots are a classic – and they’re easy to prepare. They pair well with most meat and fish dishes.

To make them, you first sauté the carrots with some fat. Then add a bit of liquid for cooking. And finally, add a sweetener to brighten the flavor and help the carrots finish glazing.

In this case, the liquid is Guinness. You could use another stout of your choice, or another hearty-flavored beer. Or another liquid entirely, such as white wine or even water.

This recipe comes from restaurateur Charlie Palmer (we first saw it years ago in the New York Times). Our recipe is adapted from his.

The dish takes about 20 minutes to prepare.

This recipe makes 6 to 8 side dish-sized servings. It’s easy to double (or halve).

Ingredients

• 1 to 1½ pounds carrots
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 cup Guinness (or another brand of stout)
• 1 tablespoon honey or maple syrup (or to taste; see Notes)
• salt to taste (several pinches of kosher salt for us; see Notes)
• ~3 tablespoons chopped parsley

Procedure

1. Wash and peel the carrots (peeling is optional). Then cut the carrots into diagonals of ¼ to ½ inch thick.
2. Melt the butter in a large frying pan. Add the sliced carrots and sauté them for 3 minutes. At this point, the carrots should be nicely glazed. Add the Guinness, reduce the heat to low, and cover the pan. Stir occasionally as the carrots cook. Cook until the carrots have just reached the tender stage (8 to 10 minutes).
3. Add the honey or maple syrup and stir to incorporate it with the Guinness. Increase the heat and cook until the liquid has almost evaporated (there will be a thin film on the pan).
4. Salt the carrots to taste. Then add the parsley and stir to incorporate it. 
5. Serve and enjoy. Maybe with a glass of Guinness.

Notes

• Most Guinness bottles hold more than 1 cup, so you’ll have some left over. Reserve that for another use. (In our case, it serves to slake the cook’s thirst.)
• Exact quantities aren’t critical in this recipe. So you can adjust ingredient amounts to your liking. We wouldn’t use much more than a cup of Guinness, though – the flavor is pretty strong.
• You can cut the carrots in any shape you like, or leave them whole. You may have to adjust the cooking time a bit, however.
• Palmer adds about 2 tablespoons of minced shallots to this dish (he cooks them with the carrots in Step 2). The shallots add flavor, but we prefer a more streamlined version of the dish.
• Don’t have honey or maple syrup on hand? You could use white or brown sugar. Or skip the sweetener entirely.
• Palmer adds about 2 teaspoons of lemon juice to the carrots at the end of cooking (acid brightens their flavor). We don’t think that’s necessary in this dish, but you might think differently.
• We like to use parsley in this dish. But fresh dill or dried thyme would also work.
• Speaking of parsley, we usually reserve a bit to sprinkle over the top of the carrots when serving them.
• We use kosher salt in cooking. It’s less salty by volume than regular table salt (the crystals are larger and more irregular, so they pack a measure less tightly). If using table salt, start with about half the amount we suggest. But always season to your taste, not ours.

Wascally Wabbits

“Yum,” said Mrs. Kitchen Riffs. “And we’ll be getting local carrots soon.”

“Though maybe not in our garden,” I said. “The rabbits will see to that.”

“Yeah, Peter Rabbit has taken up permanent residence,” said Mrs K R.

“Think I saw one of his pals setting up a produce stand the other day,” I said.

“When I’m out gardening, they don’t even bother to hop away from me,” said Mrs K R. “No fear whatsoever.”

“If you want them to, well, rabbit,” I said, “maybe you need more stick and less carrot.”

“Hare-larious,” said Mrs K R. “Not.”

Guess she doesn’t carrot all for my jokes.

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Guinness Beef Stew
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Easy and Tasty Roast Cabbage
Irish Potato Candy
Colcannon
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Easy Corned Beef Hash
Corned Beef
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Or check out the index for more