Roasted Carrots and Shallots with Gremolata

Greetings from a train! These Finnish long-distance trains are nowadays so pleasant to travel in, as most of them have a free wi-fi to please internet addicts like myself. The trip between Jyväskylä and Helsinki takes about 3,5 hours, so there has been a lot of time for me to pin stuff on Pinterest, eh. I’m traveling with super heavy luggage, and could not take our camera with me (S will bring it on Friday when he comes to Helsinki), so all I can think of is that I cannot photograph my food during these days! At least I need to try to do that with the things I’m going to prepare for my second birthday party (I think I mentioned that most of my friends live in Helsinki and had not a chance to come to Jyväskylä for the small gathering on my birthday).

While preparing to move, there has also been an ongoing “Operation: empty the fridge”. For some reason we had collected a reserve of potatoes, carrots and onions there, so in the future days I’ll probably post several recipes of those. And here comes the first one, really surprisingly good side dish, probably at its best with chicken or white fish. We had it with salmon and it was okay too. The carrots and shallots here are covered with gremolata, a condiment made of herbs, garlic and lemon zest, which was a new thing for me. I read it is often served with osso bucco, but goes well with other meat too - and carrots! If you also have some extra carrots hanging around in your fridge, give this a try.

The recipe is adapted from Proud Italian Cook.

Roasted Carrots and Shallots with Gremolata

4 carrots, peeled and cut lengthwise into strips 

4 shallot onions, peeled and cut in half

2 tablespoons olive oil

salt & black pepper

a few springs thyme (I only had Italian parsley so I used it)

For gremolata:

3-4 tablespoons good olive oil

1 big clove of garlic, finely chopped

zest of one lemon, extra finely grated

handful of flat-leaf parsley, chopped

Preheat the oven to 220°C. Place the cut carrots and shallots on a baking sheet over parchment paper and drizzle with olive oil, salt, pepper and thyme.

Bake for about 20 minutes or until the carrots are tender but still have some bite to them.

Mix the ingredients of gremolata together. 

When the carrots and shallots are roasted, move to a serving plate and while still warm, toss in the gremolata.

Serve warm.