Ingredients · Other

Carrot

Daucus carota · Apiaceae (carrot family)

Carrot
Dried carrot, in a salt-free all-purpose blend — which is precisely where it earns its place. In a seasoning mix with no salt in it, something has to supply sweetness and body, and dried vegetables do that: carrot brings a mild earthy sweetness that rounds off the herbs without tasting of carrot. One product carries it.

What it’s like, and how to use it

The partRoot
KindOther
CaffeineCaffeine-free
TasteMildly sweet and earthy; it rounds a blend rather than flavouring it

How to use it

In salt-free seasoning blends, soups and stocks. It rehydrates in any wet dish. Its job is sweetness and body rather than flavour.

With food

Onion and celery — the mirepoix. Thyme and bay. Ginger. Cumin. Orange. Butter.

With spices

Onion, celery seed, parsley and black pepper, in a salt-free blend. Thyme. Bay.

With tea

Not a tea ingredient.

Its story

Where it comes from

Our lot names no origin.

What happened

Carrot is the type plant of its whole family — Apiaceae used to be called Umbelliferae, and it is carrot's flat umbel of white flowers that gives both names their shape. That family is one of the most useful in any spice cabinet: coriander, cumin, caraway, dill, fennel, anise, celery, parsley, ajwain and chervil are all in it, which is a remarkable concentration of the world's seed spices in one branch of the plant kingdom.

On the shelf with it

Every product it goes into.