Petits flans de carotte (Carrot flans)
The cookbook Toute la cuisine au fil des saisons suggests that one serve this charming dish as the first course of three for a meal between friends (entre copains). The main course would be Maquereaux au lait de coco (mackerel stuffed with coconut and peppers), and the dessert is Compote de pommes meringuée (apple compote with meringue).
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Ingredients
- Carrots 1 lb 10 oz (750 g)
- Eggs 2
- Milk ½ cup (10 cl)
- Sour cream or crème fraiche ½ cup (10 cl)
- Butter 1-1/2 Tbsp. (20 g)
- French parsley or chervil a few branches
- Sugar 1 cube
- Nutmeg
- Salt and pepper
Instructions
- Peel and rinse carrots. Slice all but one carrot into disks. Cut the remaining carrot into thin sticks.
- In a pan, bring salted water to a boil. Add the sugar cube. Cook the carrot disks for 15 minutes. Add the thin sticks and continue cooking for an additional 5 minutes. Drain carrots. Set aside half of the disks and the sticks. Roughly chop the rest.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).
- Butter 4 small individual casserole dishes. If you don’t have 4 small individual casserole dishes, or as the French say “petites cocottes”, you could use small oven-safe bowls or coffee cups.
- Cover the bottoms and sides of the casserole dishes with the cooked carrot disks.
- Beat together the eggs and the milk. Add the chopped carrots. Salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste.
- Pour into the prepared casserole dishes.
- Place the dishes into a larger baking pan and add water to the pan to create a bain-marie.
- Bake for 20 minutes.
- Place the sour cream in a small saucepan. Add salt. Reduce the cream by half over high heat.
- Turn the carrot flans out onto serving plates. Cover with the sour cream reduction and the thin carrot sticks.
- Give a few twists of fresh ground pepper and decorate with French parsley.
- Serve immediately.