The other day I overheard a couple of ladies talking about what sounded like sauteing vegetables in cream. And I was like, WHAT NOW? But then I remembered that when you brown ground beef for Bolognese sauce you saute it in whole milk and after a while it doesn't seem like you're sauteing it in milk anymore. And it has a genuinely amazing effect. So I thought, hmm maybe there's something to this. I even checked Google and saw that this is a thing that some chefs at least occasionally do.
So I tried it.
Sunday afternoon I thickly sliced some carrots and steamed them for about 5 minutes (with just a few tablespoons of water) in the cast iron pan before adding a half a cup of cream. Then I just sauteed them, in the cream, on medium, until the cream completely broke down and they were just caramelized beyond recognition, even though they weren't burnt or overly soft. I added a little bit of fresh dill and thyme along with salt and pepper.
And then yesterday I microwaved the couple of potatoes to soften them, then did the same thing. Thick slices. A little bit of steam in the cast iron pan before adding about a half a cup of cream. Then just slowly sauteing and stirring until they were a beautiful, caramelized mess. Lots of sea salt and pepper.
Reader, there's no language to convey what happened here. I don't know if I will ever again saute any vegetable in anything but heavy cream. This feels like I cracked some sort of code, like a genuine cosmic leveling up.
Here's what the carrots looked like.
