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Carrot Flower Tutorial

Wednesday, 24 Feb 10

I used to hate carrots. Especially raw – I still don’t understand how people can munch, rabbit-like, on unadorned carrot sticks. But make them pretty, cook them so they lose that pungent raw sharpness and gain some sweetness, and I will eat them quite happily. So, while I’m sure you have your own ways of getting the cooking part right, here’s a quick tutorial on making them pretty.

Choose thick and even carrots, preferably those which don’t taper off too much at the end (insert innuendo here). Cut said carrots into 1 to 2 inch long chunks. Make sure you use a sharp paring knife, and practice safe knife skills (so have to try the fluted mushrooms sometime, so pretty!)

There is no need to peel the carrots, as you’ll be cutting the chunks into pentagons anyway. An easy way to get regular pentagons if you can’t eye it is to cut a long rectangular strip of paper about 2/3 of the diameter of your carrot wide, and tie a knot in it. When you press the paper flat, it will form a pentagon. For those of you who have made paper stars previously, it is identical to the perfect knot as demonstrated here in the first 5 steps. Trim the ends of the paper, and use the pentagon as a template for your carrots. Personally, I just eyeball it.

Make a small cut (1/8 inch) towards the centre of the carrot in the middle of one of the five sides of the pentagon (Cut A). Then carefully cut from about 1/8 inch from that initial cut towards Cut A at a diagonal with a slight curve (Cut B) – I find the shallower Cut B is, the more room you have for adjusting to your aesthetics afterwards – I prefer quite a shallow cut, actually, as you can see in the following picture (only about halfway down Cut A).

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Hopefully the picture makes things a bit clearer. Repeat Cuts A and B for the remaining sides. You are aiming for round petals, but of course, this can easily be adjusted at the end.

Turn the chunk of carrot around and repeat Cut B on the other side of Cut A to form the basic cherry blossom shape. Adjust the angles and grooves to your own liking. If you like the plain shape as it is now, you can soak it in cold water until you are ready to cook it, as you cut the other carrots. At this stage, it would be well suited to cutting thin cross sections, for garnishes. (Mum used them in noodles for Chinese New Year)

If you want to go beyond this for a more decorative look, such as in here, make shallow cuts from the centre of the carrot to Cut A, following what you imagine would be the curve of the petals of the flower. (Cut C)

Cut at a shallow diagonal from the center of the petal on the right towards Cut C, giving the petals some dimension. This style is well suited to chunkier styles of cooking carrot, such as in a stew.

Posted at 6:52 pm in Crumbs, Savouries | Respond?

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