Maple and clementine glazed carrots.

Maple and clementine glazed carrots.

This is a super easy recipe that you can make from start to finish in about 20 minutes. Additionally, by using the hob instead of slow roasting, it frees up oven space when you're doing the inevitable Christmas shuffle of trying to fit all the roasting trays in to oven at one time, and faffing around trying to see if your grill also works as a top oven when things get desperate, just me? Never mind.

Ingredients:

 1kg of small carrots (heirloom carrots work beautifully but any will do)

Garlic infused olive oil (for a low fodmap option) Or 6 cloves of garlic

1 tbsp of vegan butter (or dairy butter for vegetarian option)

About 8 sprigs of fresh thyme or 2 tsps dried thyme 

2 clementines

2 bay leaves

2 tbsp of maple syrup (or any liquid sweetener you like)

Method:

Wash and trim the carrots. No need to peel.

Put a little drizzle of olive oil (garlic infused for low fodmap) in a large frying pan then add the butter and melt together over a medium heat.

Crush the unpeeled garlic (leave out if low fodmap) with the flat side of a knife add to the pan and cook for a minute or so, turn, then add the thyme. Let it sizzle and crackle in the pan for a minute then squeeze in the clementine juice, half a cup of water, the maple syrup and the bay leaves. 

Add the carrots and a generous pinch of salt and black pepper and toss them around the pan until they are fully coated.

Reduce the heat a little, cover the pan with a lid or tinfoil and cook for 15 minutes or until the carrots are tender. If you’re using larger carrots and they're still pretty hard after this point. Add a little more water and cook for a further 5 minutes or so.

Once the carrots are tender, take the lid/cover off the pan, crack the heat back up to medium-high heat and reduce all of the moisture away until you're left with a glossy clementine glaze. Give the pan a good shake, the carrots will start to catch and caramelise pretty quickly so keep turning them until they are beautifully browning but do keep an eye on them so the glaze doesn't burn.

Tip out on to a serving plate and enjoy.