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August 26, 2008

Indian Carrot Salad

the last bit of food on my plate

Loved this one! So crispy, smokey and refreshing!

Peeling the Carrots:


making carrot salad

Dressing Assembly:

assembly of dressing

Up close & personal with the dressing:

dressing for carrot salad

Last night’s dinner!

dinner!

Serving it up!

serving it up

My plate:

my plate

Indian Carrot Salad


(Jamie At Home)

-1lb. carrots peeled (use multi-colored for extra prettiness)
-1 teaspoon cumin seeds
-3 shallots or 1 small red onion, peeled (I used a red onion)
-1 lemon, zested and juiced
-1 heaped teaspoon freshly grated ginger
-Extra-virgin olive oil
-A small bunch fresh cilantro, leaves picked
-A small bunch fresh mint, leaves picked
-salt & pepper to taste

1. Heat a small frying pan over a moderate heat and toast the cumin seeds for 30 seconds – they will start to smell nutty and gorgeous. You’re not trying to cook the seeds here, you’re just waking their flavors up a bit. Put them into a pestle and mortar and grind them up.

2. Slice your peeled shallots or onion wafer thin. As with all salads that contain onion, you don’t want to be coming across great big chunks! If you don’t feel confident about your knife skills, use the coarse side of a box grater instead. This will almost mush your onions to a puree, but at least you won’t come across any big bits.

3. To make your dressing, put the lemon zest and juice into a bowl and add the shallots or onion, grated ginger, ground cumin and a pinch of salt. Whisk everything together with about 5 tablespoons of extra- virgin olive oil. Pour the dressing over the carrots, add the cilantro and mint leaves, and mix it all together using your fingers. It’s important that you have a little taste to check whether the dressing needs more lemon juice, oil or seasoning.

***Yesterday morning I woke up super early and was watching Jamie Oliver’s cooking show–Jamie At Home– on the Food Network. While drinking my coffee and eating my yogurt I got a hankering to make this for dinner for Monday night. After my doctors appointment, I rushed to the store and bought all the ingredients I needed.

It wasn’t until I went to brown the ground lamb that I realized it was GROUND BEEF. Apparently my pregnant brain mistook the work LEAN for LAMB. This is something I realized 30 minutes before we were sitting down to eat. I rushed out to the store (two stores actually) and there was no ground lamb to be found. I improvised and used lamb blades (i think it said blades- don’t count on my memory these days!) and grilled them up and squeezed lemon on top. They were OK- I will definitely set out to find ground lamb to RE-DO the recipe.

I really loved the Indian carrot salad! It’s nice and crisp. Refreshing and light! The perfect amount of bite & spice. It went really well with garlic naan and a splash of cumin yogurt. I will definitely make it again.***

  • Lana

    awesome. I am totally going to use the rest of our carrots for this salad. I am mega jealous of your Jamie at Home viewing! I have to settle for the cookbook version.

  • kickpleat

    this salad looks so pretty! i love the carrot ribbons and i’ll definitely be trying out this salad soon.

  • reya

    Sounds great! I’d be too tempted to throw in a handful of cooked lentils though.

  • trupeach

    beautiful salad! and, your new camera certainly does all of those colors justice.

  • Samantha

    This looks amazing! Thanks for sharing!!

  • Allyson

    I love your white square plates … we just got a set from pottery barn when we got married … they make even the simplest meals look amazing. I’m a sucker for great presentation 🙂

  • Tracy

    thank you everyone! i hope you try the recipe! it’s very tasty

    thanks allyson! they are the perfect canvas for food! i love them too 😉

  • Mary Lou

    I just made this whole meal last night. I used your carrot salad recipe and used The Joy of Cooking for naan and tzatziki. Starting naan after work means eating dinner at 8:30! Gosh it was good and I’m looking forward to the leftovers for lunch today!

  • Michelle

    As I had told you last night via Twitter – I made this salad last night for dinner. I’m slow at all the prep so I skipped the cilantro. Oh and the mint because I’m not a fan of mint. I was so excited because I had all these great carrots from the Farmer’s Market!

    The salad overall was so tasty and refreshing! And I’m having it for lunch today!

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