Indian Carrot Salad
-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.***