A Side Dish of Spiced and Creamed Carrots

Perhaps it was the carrot loaf of the 1970s, slimmers’ soups, or the post–Second World War carrot cake recipes without the promise of walnuts and cream cheese frosting, but carrots rarely offer us a taste of luxury. Fiddling around—there is no other word—with grated carrots one day, I wondered if there would be any mileage in a dish similar to creamed corn, where the sweet vegetables are stewed with cream to give a deliciously sloppy side dish. There wasn’t. Until I worked backward and added spices to the carrots before enriching them with both cream (for richness) and strained yogurt (for freshness). The result is one of those suave, mildly spiced side dishes that can be used alongside almost anything. In our house it has nestled up to brown rice, grilled lamb steaks, and, most successful of all, sautéed rabbit.