Freezing carrots (and other vegetables)

We’ve now lifted all the remaining over-wintered root vegetables, which means preserving the crop to see us through to the earliest of this year’s crops become available. Unfortunately, we’re a little short this year thanks to a mouse raid, damage from carrot fly, and a few rotten carrots and turnips to boot. Still, we have enough carrots for another six weeks over and above those we already have in the freezer or pickled in the larder cupboard. With care, it should be enough. All the freshly lifted carrots will be frozen, so I started by cleaning them up—discarding any that could not be saved, trimming away the mouse nibbled sections and cutting away the damage done by carrot fly larvae. Then I had a long, long spell of peeling.

The thinner carrots were diced into circles, but the larger carrots had to be halved or, in some cases, quartered. It was another long job.

After a lengthy session of slicing and dicing, I had a very large bowl full of pieces of carrot. Strangely, there were fewer than there should have been—something to do with a small hand that kept sneaking into the bowl when its owner thought I wasn’t looking.

With the carrots ready, I heated a large pan of water until it reached a rolling boil and ladled the carrots in. Tipping them in is not a good idea as the boiling water can splash, plus the carrots may displace more water than expected and the pan can overflow. Blanch the carrots for three minutes from the moment the carrots go in. Don’t wait until the water comes back to the boil or you’ll have mushy carrots.

Drain the carrots in a colander, then plunge into chilled water and agitate vigorously. Remove the carrots after a minute and plunge into a second bowl of chilled water (the first will now be warm). Leave the carrots immersed for at least three minutes, then remove and drain thoroughly. The dryer the carrots are before freezing, the better.

Spoon the cold, dry carrots into suitable containers. We use old margarine tubs as they seal well and hold 300g of carrots—that’s enough to use in a stew, casserole or soup that will feed the four of us for two nights. It’s important to have as little airspace in the containers as possible to prevent freezer burn. If using plastic bags, pop the bags of carrots into halved plastic milk bottles or fruit juice cartons before freezing. The square or rectangular shape is easier to stack in the freezer. Clearly mark all containers with the date of freezing and store in accordance with the freezer’s manual. A similar process can be followed with many other vegetables—we also freeze parsnips, peas, broad beans, spinach, leaf beets, cauliflower and broccoli.