No Food Waste: Carrot Top Tempura

Running out of food means an unnerving trip to the grocery store or another expensive Instacart order, So, I’m more motivated than ever to avoid food waste.

Here are some of the tricks I’ve learned.

Growing Food from Food Scraps

One of my Twitter friends in Sacramento tweeted that she was growing green onions by rooting the bulb end in soil or in a glass of water. I followed suit and was surprised at how easily they grew.

As it turns out, there are other types of produce you can grow from food scraps that would normally end up in your compost bin, including lettuce, celery, and tomatoes.

Eat Throwaway Greens

We subscribe to a CSA that sends us produce from a farm once a week. All our carrots come with beautiful green tops, as do our radishes. To avoid food waste, we are learning to eat these “bonus” greens.

• Toss the radish tops into green salads; they add a nice, peppery flavor.
• Turn carrot tops into tempura. Dip the leafy greens into a light tempura batter (recipe below) and fry just until crisp. They’re quite delicious!
• Make a carrot top pesto recipe from Simply Recipes, which uses equal amounts of spinach and carrot tops, along with cashew nuts. Or try chimichurri.
• Save tough ribs of kale, chard, or collard greens, cut them into 1-inch pieces, and add to soups.
• Save vegetable scraps and trimmings, bag and freeze, and use as a base for vegetable broths.
• Slice and sauté leftover stems of cauliflower, broccoli, or broccolini and use as a topping for pizza.
• Salvage green onions that are starting to go slimy by stripping off the bad parts, rinsing, then tossing with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Roast on a parchment-lined baking sheet at 450 degrees for about 10 minutes. Cut the onions into 1-inch pieces and add to pizzas or pasta.

Carrot Top Tempura

Leafy tops from 1 or 2 bunches organic carrots
1 egg
2/3 cup ice water
1 cup cake flour
Vegetable oil for deep frying
Mayonnaise
Sriracha

Break off leaves to form smaller branches about 4 inches long. Pat dry with paper towels; set aside.

To Make Tempura Batter:

In a medium bowl, beat egg lightly with a fork or chopsticks. Add water and flour; mix until just blended. A few small lumps may remain.

To Cook Tempura:

In a heavy-bottomed skillet add oil to a depth of about 2 inches and heat over medium heat to 355°F on a candy thermometer or until a drip of batter added to the oil immediately sizzles and rises to the surface. Using tongs or chopsticks, hold carrot top by the stem end and dip in the tempura batter to coat. Lower the carrot top into the oil, very gently swishing it to keep leaves from clumping. Be careful because hot oil may spatter.

Continue to add batter-dipped carrot tops; do not crowd the pan. Remove carrot tops when batter turns golden; drain on wire rack. Occasionally, use a strainer to strain out bits of batter to keep the oil clean.

To Make the Dipping Sauce:

Combine mayonnaise with sriracha, to taste. Serve with tempura.

Tips:

• The yield will depend on how many carrot tops you have; if you have remaining batter, use it to dip sliced eggplant, green pepper, or carrots to make vegetable tempura.
• Or, add butterflied shrimp or small pieces of fish to make seafood tempura.
• For an aioli dipping sauce, instead of sriracha, mix mayonnaise with some finely minced garlic and a squeeze of lemon juice.
• For a traditional Japanese tempura dipping sauce, use bottled tempura sauce mix; dilute following package directions.

Top Three Ways to Use Leftover Produce

When you have a little of this or a little of that, here are my top three go-to ways to use them.

• Pizza–This is a great way to use up leftover bits of meat, vegetables and cheese. My super-easy food processor pizza dough takes just minutes to make.
• Soup–Create your own, custom creamy soup with just 1 1/2 cups of a diced vegetable; serve hot or cold.
• Fried Rice–Use up leftover rice, vegetables, and meat to make this easy, kid-pleasing, one-pan meal.

I’ve never been more aware of food waste than I have sheltering in place. These are good habits I hope to maintain, long after the crisis has passed.