Recipe

Carrots

Step 1: Peel the carrots with Y-peeler. Long, fluid strokes — don’t chisel away at them!

Step 2: Par-cook briefly in salted boiling water; drain gently through a perforated hotel pan, taking care that they don’t get nicked and dented.

Step 3: We have nothing here but carrots and butter, so let’s show we know how to work in a kitchen and take care of our ingredients.

Step 4: During service, keep a dinner napkin draped in your hot water bath and lift the carrots out at each order by using your napkin as a kind of gurney or stork’s bundle. Turn them out into a shallow pan and roll them in a generous spoonful of preserved lemon butter (see below). Tip and slide the carrots right onto the plate without using a utensil. Arrange with your fingers into an organized casual pyramid.

Step 5: Cut a drippy, oozing tablet of honeycomb and set on top at the pass.

Step 6: A small pinch of Maldon to finish — be careful with the salt-sugar balance, keeping in mind the carrots themselves are sweet.

Preserved Lemon Butter

Step 1: In a processor, grind shallots and garlic. Add lemon juice, then transfer mixture to a stand mixer.

Step 2: Remove collapsed flesh of preserved lemons (see below) and throw away. Only use the skin. Make sure to remove pith.

Step 3: Finely mince preserved lemon skin.

Step 4: Combine butter, garlic-shallot paste, minced preserved lemon and basil and mix using the paddle attachment until fully combined.

Salt Preserved Lemons

Step 1: Cut the lemons almost all the way through into quarters, keeping them attached at the stem end.

Step 2: In the bottom of a 12-quart container, pour an even 1/2″ bed of salt. Set the lemons into the salt, cut sides up and open, packing tight side by side. When you have nestled in one layer (1/4 of the lemons, give or take), pour salt heavily into all the open cavities of the lemons of the first layer.

Step 3: Set in another layer of lemons, in soldier rows, on top of the others. Again, cavities up and open. Really blanket them in salt after each layer. Pack all the lemons in the same way, then pour lemon juice over them at the end.

Step 4: Cover and store in the refrigerator, agitating occasionally for the first few weeks to moisten the lemons with the accumulating brine. The lemons need to eventually become submerged in this brine; if it doesn’t cover them after one month, get in there with your hands and give them a little help. Add more fresh lemon juice if necessary.

Reprinted with permission from Gabrielle Hamilton’s Prune (2014 Random House).