Steamed Carrot, Green Bean & Courgette Spears
Allergen lists cover the priority allergens in the recipe as written. Always check your own ingredient labels, and introduce each new allergen on its own first.
Ingredients
- 2 medium carrots, about 160 g (5 1/2 oz), peeled
- 100 g (3 1/2 oz) green beans, tops and tails trimmed and the tough side string pulled away
- 1 small courgette / zucchini, about 150 g (5 oz)
- 1 tsp extra-virgin olive oil, or another mild plain vegetable oil (use oil rather than a salted dairy spread, which brings both salt and a Dairy allergen with it)
- 1 pinch ground cumin or sweet paprika, no salt added (optional)
- 1 tsp fresh lemon juice (optional)
Method
- 1. Cut every vegetable to its final finger-food shape BEFORE cooking — carrots and courgette into long spears, green beans trimmed and de-stringed. Cooked-soft vegetables crumble if you try to cut them afterwards.
- 2. Quarter each peeled carrot lengthwise into 4 long spears; never cut carrot into round coins, which are an airway-shaped choking hazard.
- 3. Pull the tough side string from each green bean and split any bean thicker than a pencil in half lengthwise, so no piece keeps a firm round cross-section.
- 4. Cut the courgette lengthwise into 6-8 spears, leaving the soft skin on for grip.
- 5. Bring 3 cm (1 in) of water to a simmer under a steamer basket. Add the carrot spears first and steam 12 minutes — carrot is the densest vegetable here and needs the longest.
- 6. Add the green beans and courgette on top and steam a further 5-6 minutes, until everything is very tender and the beans are limp rather than squeaky.
- 7. Run the squash test on one piece of each vegetable: it must flatten easily when pressed between your thumb and forefinger. If a carrot spear or a bean resists at all, steam 3 more minutes and test again. Anything that still will not squash goes back in the pan, not on the tray.
- 8. Toss the drained spears with the olive oil, cumin and lemon juice — no salt is needed, and none should go in. Cool to just-warm and serve. Refrigerate leftovers up to 3 days; reheat and repeat the squash test before serving again.
How to serve by age
6–8 months
Serve as whole finger-length spears about 8-10 cm (3-4 in) long and two adult fingers wide, so roughly 3-4 cm sticks out above baby's closed fist. At this stage babies use the palmar (whole-hand) grasp and can only eat what protrudes from the top of the fist, so anything shorter than a finger disappears inside the hand.
9–12 months
Once the pincer grasp (thumb and forefinger) has emerged, dice the same steamed vegetables into 1 cm (1/2 in) pea-sized pieces and scatter a few at a time on the tray so baby can pick up each individual piece between thumb and forefinger.
Paediatric note
Steaming rather than boiling keeps far more of the water-soluble vitamin C and folate in the vegetable instead of the cooking water, and the small amount of added olive oil matters because beta-carotene is fat-soluble and is absorbed several times better in the presence of fat. Raw carrot sticks are one of the most common choking foods in infants and toddlers and should never be offered before around age 4 — cooking until squashable, not cutting smaller, is what makes a hard vegetable safe.
Source guidance: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/baby/weaning-and-feeding/
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