It's customary to eat carrots on Rosh Hashanah. There's Tzimmes, which is very traditional, but I've enjoyed playing around with some alternatives like my (very popular!) Ginger-Infused Roasted Carrot Soup, and these sticky, orange-glazed baby carrots.

Why carrots? Well, there’s the sweetness factor—we try to eat sweet foods to symbolize our wish for a good, sweet year ahead. But it is also customary to eat foods whose names in the vernacular allude to blessing and prosperity, and the Yiddish word for carrot, meren, also means to multiply.

This recipe is about as simple as they come. You're just cooking the carrots down slowly in fresh orange juice, olive oil (or butter, if it's a dairy occasion) with some salt and thyme, until the liquid has been completely absorbed. No need to even peel the carrots. Just buy good, young carrots (like Dutch baby carrots), cut off most of the greens and wash them well.

The slow cook gives the juice time to thicken and become syrupy, and the end result is carrots that are tender and glazed with a sticky, almost-caramel-like coating.



Ingredients:

  • 10 Dutch baby carrots
  • 1-2 oranges, juiced
  • 2 tbsp. butter or olive oil
  • 5 sprigs fresh thyme
  • salt

Directions:

  1. Cut off most of the greens and wash the carrots well.
  2. Place the carrots in a frying pan or wide pot.
  3. Juice the oranges and pour 2/3 cup juice over the carrots. Add the oil or butter, a sprinkle of salt, and the thyme sprigs.
  4. Simmer over a very low flame until all the carrots have absorbed all the liquid, feel tender, and are starting to look sticky and caramelized—approximately 30-40 minutes. Jiggle the pan every 10 minutes to make sure the carrots don't stick to the bottom. Serve warm.