Carrots Braised with Onions

Melt butter in a saucepan and add 3 medium-sized chopped onions. Let them soften and turn golden. Add sliced carrots (you don't have to peel organic carrots, but do wash well) and a tsp sugar or mild honey and stir over the heat. Pour in a little water, add a sprig of fresh thyme. Season with salt and pepper. Put the lid on and simmer until soft. Take off the lid and continue to cook for about 10 minutes until the liquid has been absorbed. If you like, you can stir in a little crème fraiche at the end. Remove the thyme stalk (the leaves will have distributed themselves around the pan). Dust with chopped parsley or chervil if you have it.

Moroccan Hot Carrot Salad

Scrape carrots, cut up and steam until very soft. Mash with a fork in a bowl with _ to 1 tsp harissa (North African chilli paste - very hot) or chilli powder with paprika to taste; 1 tsp ground cumin (toast gently in a frying pan and grind in a pestle and mortar or use fresh ready ground); a splash of red wine vinegar, another of good olive oil; crushed garlic to taste, salt, pepper and a pinch of ground ginger if you have it. Serve with hot pitta bread or toast. What looks very nice for a dinner party first course is to serve a dollop of the carrot beside a dollop of greek yoghurt dusted with parsley, on a bright green (or other startling) plate.

Turkish Carrot Soup

Peel potatoes and cut into a dice. Scrape carrots and chop up. Peel and chop an onion, and some garlic cloves. Melt a little olive oil in a heavy lidded pan. Add vegetables and stir round to coat with oil. All to soften over a low flame for 10 minutes. Meanwhile in frying pan heat a tsp or two of cumin seeds until they just begin to smell toasted. Tip into a pestle and mortar and grind up roughly. Add to the vegetables in the pan. Pour over stock. Bring to boil and cook until soft. Liquidise. Taste and season with salt pepper and lemon juice. Serve with yoghurt.

Carrots Stewed with Rice

Scrape carrots, and cut each in half lengthways. Heat a little olive oil in a heavy frying pan. Put in the carrots and coat with the oil. Add 2 tblspns Basmati rice, and stir it around with the carrots. Now add water just to cover and a pinch of salt. Simmer, uncovered for about 25 minutes until both carrots and rice are tender and liquid is absorbed. Stir in a tblspn dried mint (typical seasoning of Turkey) or fresh mint or parsley, plus a good squeeze of lemon juice. This dish only works with flavourful organic carrots, otherwise it is too bland to be worth bothering with.

Caramelised Vegetables

Scrub, top and tail carrots, and either leave whole if they are small, or cut into rounds. Cover with cold water in a pan, with a lump or tsp of sugar and some butter or grapeseed oil. Bring to the boil and cook uncovered until the water has boiled away and the carrots are just beginning to catch. Watch it carefully. According to Lady Kennet, this works brilliantly with fennel as well. "It caught rather seriously," she says. "The fennel 'strings' were left on the bottom of the pan, crisp and caramelised and absolutely delicious. I can't work out what they might be for - a cook's perk, I think," she adds.