Caramelized Carrot Sauced Onion Pasta
Serves: 4 appetizers, 2 entrées
I love to experiment with unusual cooking techniques. One of my favorite sources is Modernist Cuisine, which uses: spherification, sous vide, pressure cooking, smoking and more, in their recipes. One recipe that blew me away was the caramelized carrot soup, a pressure cooked soup filled with, of course, carrots but also a stick of butter. It is so rich and sweet. I decided to Garden of Eydie-it by eliminating the butter and the salt, and it’s still very rich and sweet, but not excessively so! I like it even better. I decided to make the soup into a sauce for onion pasta! This is an amazing plant-based treat.
Equipment needed: Pressure Cooker, potato masher (or fork)
I love to experiment with unusual cooking techniques. One of my favorite sources is Modernist Cuisine, which uses: spherification, sous vide, pressure cooking, smoking and more, in their recipes. One recipe that blew me away was the caramelized carrot soup, a pressure cooked soup filled with, of course, carrots but also a stick of butter. It is so rich and sweet. I decided to Garden of Eydie-it by eliminating the butter and the salt, and it’s still very rich and sweet, but not excessively so! I like it even better. I decided to make the soup into a sauce for onion pasta! This is an amazing plant-based treat.
Equipment needed: Pressure Cooker, potato masher (or fork)
Ingredients
- 1 extra large white onion (16 ounces.), or 2 smaller ones
- 5 cups, about 5 medium sized carrots peeled
- 3 tablespoons water
- 3/8 teaspoon baking soda
- 1-pint cherry tomatoes, roasted
- 3 tablespoons basil, chiffonade (stack leaves, roll vertically, and slice thinly with sharp knife)
Directions
Preheat oven to 400℉ for the cherry tomatoes
- Trim the top and root stem of the onion. Place root side down, place your knife half way in on top of the onion and make a vertical cut from top to bottom.. Turn the onion on its side, cut side down, and slice the onion into very thin slices, ⅛-inch wide. Separate the strands.
- In a double boiler, steam the onion pasta over simmering water, covered, until al dente. About 5 minutes. Check to see if onions are to your liking, and keep steaming if necessary. Remove the onion from the steamer to bowl.
- Slice the peeled carrots, lengthwise into quarters. Cut out and discard the tough and fibrous core from each quarter. Removing the cores makes the carrots much sweeter and improves the texture of the sauce.
- Cut carrots into 2” lengths.
- In a pressure cooker pot, add carrots, water and baking soda. Stir to combine. Pressure-cook at a gauge pressure of 1 bar/15 psi for 20 minutes. Start timing when full pressure is reached.
- Depressurize the cooker quickly by running water over the rim. With a potato masher, mash the carrots to a chunky sauce.
While carrots are cooking place the tomatoes on a parchment lined sheet tray and bake in the preheated oven for 10-15 minutes, or until the tomatoes start to shrivel. Remove from the oven and reserve 2-3 cherry tomatoes for each person being served, keeping the rest for the pasta.
- In a 10-inch sauté pan, add a bit of water or vegetable stock and bring to a simmer. Add onion pasta and sauté until warmed through.
- Add carrot mixture and the rest of the cherry tomatoes not reserved for garnish, and with tongs, carefully mix in with the pasta.
Plate the sauced pasta on individual serving plates, and garnish with 2 or 3 cherry tomatoes per person. Sprinkle with basil.
