Sesame Oil Recipe: Carrot Kinpira

You may have seen in a previous post me write about my new love for sesame oil. So I requested from my readers new recipes using sesame oil and my loyal reader Snugglebunny, writer of The Republic of Bunny Blog came to my rescue with this recipe for Carrot Kinpira from Just Bento. It looked easy enough to make, and with the ingredients sesame oil and red pepper flakes, my tastebuds were tickled.

The night before cooking, I took my whole carrots, peeled them and cut them into matchsticks, or as close as I could get with our not-so-great set of knives. Let me tell you, "cheating" by buying those pre-cut matchstick carrots would have been a much easier solution...next time.

Once I was ready to cook, this took no time. Thank goodness, because it was 9pm before I was even home to start making dinner - so this became more of a bedtime snack with lots of leftovers for lunch!

Here is the recipe from justbento.com. Note: I used maybe 8 whole carrots, which quadrupled this recipe.

Note that I don’t add any sugar or mirin here, unlike most traditional kinpira recipes. I just let the natural sweetness of the carrots speak for itself.

2 medium carrots
1 Tbs. dark sesame oil
a pinch of red pepper flakes (about 1/8 tsp, or more if you want it spicier)
1 Tbs. soy sauce
1 tsp. sesame seeds - I had a sesame seed blend with other yummy Asian flavors

Cut the carrots into matchstick size. (Cheat alert - you can use pre-shredded carrots meant for salad if you like, but then lessen the cooking time.)
Heat up a frying pan or wok with the sesame oil. Add the carrots and toss around until crisp-tender, about 4 to 5 minutes depending on how skinny the matchsticks are. Add the red pepper flakes and toss some more. Add soy sauce, toss toss. Add the sesame seeds near the end.
This does theoretically keep in the refrigerator for a couple of days, though around here it never does.

I think because I had large "matchsticks" my carrots never got crispy but rather just a little softer. Still good! While the carrots were cooking, I boiled some rice noodles. Once they were done, I drizzled on a little more sesame oil and some light soy sauce. The only thing missing from this dish was some sort of protein, but at 9pm I was running out of steam and the dish was nice and simple and tasted great anyway. In the future, it'll go well with some stir fried tofu cubes cooking alongside the carrots.