Cooked Carrots Are Crave-Worthy When You Use This Saucy, Buttery French Method

Don't settle for plain old steamed carrots: Look to northern France for a buttery approach instead. The dish in question is carottes à la normande (Normandy-style carrots): They're an old-school French bistro side of carrots cooked with ample butter and finished with crème fraîche and a little parsley. It skips the fussy French mother sauces or stocks in favor of simple, tender carrots with a sauce that adds richness but lets the carrots' sweetness shine through.

Unsurprisingly, the dish takes its name from Normandy (on France's northern coast). This isn't really wine country; the local specialties are more dairy and orchards. So, "à la normande" on a French dish usually implies that cream and/or butter will be involved. This is generally tracked back to 1837, when a chef at the famed Rocher de Cancale brasserie  devised "sole à la normande," a dish of fish poached in cider and served with a creamy, buttery, lemony sauce. (It's not too far from Julia Child's famed sole meunière.) The "à la normande" descriptor then caught on for anything that leans on items like apples or Normandy's famously rich butter or cream. This was eventually applied to vegetables as well, which, at some point, gave the world carottes à la normande.

There's no need to seek out a brasserie that serves carottes à la normande, considering they're super simple to make at home. Peel and slice some carrots, then saute them with a little water and butter for around 20 to 25 minutes until they're tender. When the pan is drying out, stir in the crème fraîche, let it reduce a little, season it all, and finish it off with chopped parsley. No need for clumpy flour or cornstarch to thicken the sauce, it just reduces on its own.

This isn't the only deliciously simple French carrot dish worth knowing. Another is Vichy carrots (carottes Vichy): They're similarly cooked in water (traditionally, a mineral water from Vichy) and butter but with a little sugar, so the liquid reduces into a glaze. There's no cream here, so it's a lighter and sweeter dish compared to the Normand version.

Alternatively, you can apply the "à la normande" treatment to other vegetables or meats. Beyond the classic sole version, mussels (with a buttery, cider-laced broth), chicken, and scallops work well with Norman-style cream and butter sauce (often mixed with cider or calvados, a Normandy apple brandy). On the veggie side, you can try green beans with a similar mix, or cabbage with cider and butter.