Grandma's carrots

My grandmother prepared all her dishes on a "Leuvense stoof (stove)". The advantage of this is that the back of the stove was ideal to simmer stews through the lower and constant temperature. She let it cook for about 3 hours on very low heat. The smell of good butter and carrots in our house was amazing! I coold smell the mix of fresh laurel and thyme that slowly merges with the rest of the herbs, including freshly grated nutmeg, a classic from grandmother's kitchen and a common spice in the newer kitchens such as the Indian cuisine (curry's).

Dice the onions, heat the butter (make sure it doesn't turn dark or you'll get a slightly different taste) and add the herbs. We always fry the onion and herbs to extract more flavour before we cook them. Same as in Indian cuisine, all the spices and herbs are sautéed before cooking. I tend to use a lot of laurel, as I like the taste and smell a lot, specially in combination with carrots. (and mixed with garlic and white fish...more to come later on)

If you want you can either completely replace the butter with olive oil, or use a 50/50 proportion. In my variation recipe "Minestrone à la Toscana' I apply this ratio because I want to give the dish an Italian accent and it totally changes the overall richness.

My grandma even used a 50/50 ratio of butter and delicious porc fat! I don't but I do add a little piece of porc neck to give it more taste. Just let it fry till golden brown.

I let the onion simmer for about 5-7 mins, now it's time for adding the chopped carrots. You can choose how you want to slice/cut them, just know that if you go for a shorter cooking time, use smaller chunks. Also add the celery stalk. If you don't like the celery in your plate, leave it as a whole stick with leaves, otherwise you can chop it also into a fine brunoise.

Now for the cooking: 

Let the carrots simmer for some 15 mins. Then add some hot water until everything is almost covered. Turn the heat to low, place the lid on and let it simmer for about 1,5 hours. You can open the lid to stir a bit, but do it quickly.

After 1,5 hour when everything should be getting really soft, uncover the pot, cook it a bit further and let the juices evaporate until you have a creamy liquid left. This way you don't have to thicken the sauce, and the flavour will have concentrated due to evaporation.