Steemit Iron Chef 2017 #02 : Carrot Schnitzel

How do you elevate a humble ingredient like a carrot to the centerpiece of a vegetarian main course dish? You make it into everyone's favorite food... the schnitzel!

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My submission for week #2 of Steemit Iron Chef is a main course dish using carrots.
The dish is, a Carrot Schnitzel with a Carrot Sauce, Yogurt and a Carrot Top Pesto.

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I started by peeling and steaming the carrots until they were tender.

After the carrots were tender I left them uncovered in the refrigerator overnight to really dry out.

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Next I made the carrot sauce. This sauce is a puree sauce and the ingredients are:

1. All the uncooked carrot peelings from steamed carrots
2. One roughly cut carrot unpeeled
3. 30 grams of sweet onion, sliced
4. 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander seed

To make the sauce, heat a sauce pan on medium heat and toast the ground coriander seeds. The sauce pan should be dry with no oil and the coriander is toasted when you can smell its aroma. This takes about 30 seconds. Add the onion, carrot and carrot peelings to the sauce pan and cover the vegetables with water. Bring to a boil on high heat and then reduce the heat and simmer the vegetables until they are soft. This will take around 20 minutes. Most of the water should of evaporated by this point. Puree the vegetables and liquid in a food processor and season with salt and pepper to taste. Keep the sauce warm while you make the pesto.

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For the pesto you will need the following ingredients

1. Two bunches of carrot tops (blanched and shocked)
2. 1/3 cup of olive oil
3. The zest of one fresh lemon
4. The juice of 1/2 fresh lemon
5. The peel of 1/2 of a preserved lemon
6. 1/3 cup pistachio nuts
7. 1 teaspoon of whole coriander seeds (crushed with a mortar and pestle)
8. 2 dried chilies
9. 1 clove of garlic (peeled)

To make the pesto add all of the ingredients except the olive oil into a food processor. Turn on the machine and slowly drizzle in the olive oil. Season with salt and pepper to taste. I found that the carrot tops needed to be blanched to reduce their natural "grassy" flavor. Once the flavor was mellowed out a bit, it made a tasty pesto with the other ingredients.

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To prepare the yogurt you need:

1. Plain yogurt
2. Water

In a bowl, whisk the yogurt and slowly add water until the consistency of the yogurt is similar to the consistency of the carrot sauce.

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To prepare the carrots you will need:

1. The steamed and dried carrots
2. 1/2 cup of flour
3. 2 eggs beaten
4. 2 cups of bread crumbs
5. 1 cup of neutral flavored oil

Season the carrots with salt and pepper to taste. Using the standard breading procedure, coat the carrots in the flour and shake off the excess flour. Then coat the carrots in the eggs and let the excess eggs drip off. Finally, coat the carrots in the bread crumbs and really make sure they are fully coated. Heat the oil to medium high heat and pan fry the carrots for around 2 minutes per side. The crumbs should take on some color and become crispy. Drain the carrot schnitzels on a wire rack and then move on to plating.

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For the plating, I choose to do a "family" style. This platter would be presented to the table and everyone would share the dish. First I put down a base of the carrot sauce. Then I spooned the pesto around the carrot sauce. I drizzled the yogurt over the two sauces. I stuck some carrot tops into the cooked schnitzels to make sure it was obvious that these are carrots and finally I nestled the carrot schnitzels into the sauces.

The interior of the schnitzel was tender and sweet, with the exterior giving the dish a great crunch. The opposing textures were perfect together. I love carrots with coriander seeds so, this was my inspiration for the flavor profile. I wanted a really simple low fat carrot/coriander sauce to go with the richer and spicer pesto. The yogurt acted to cut some of the richness of the schnitzel and to cool the chilies in the pesto.

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As always thank you for stopping by today!
Two quick questions before I say goodbye... Would you order a Carrot Schnitzel with a Carrot Sauce, Yogurt and a Carrot Top Pesto for a vegetarian main course in a restaurant? Why or Why not?
Thank you.
Steve