Today I am updating a post from November last year to make use of these glorious heritage carrots from Natoora. Of course, you can just use normal ones or baby carrots as I did originally. The introduction that follows remains the same, but I have edited the recipe.
As a budding young food anthropologist I feel very ambivalent about the name I have just given this recipe. I just spent my summer writing a dissertation querying the very notion that any dish or cuisine can be assigned a nationality. However, the alternative is a bit of a mouthful: “Carrots with preserved lemon, cumin, caraway and coriander seeds”. I could keep things vague, e.g. “Middle-Eastern spiced carrots”, but that only extends the problem, anthropologically speaking. Anyway, the point here is these carrots are bloody delicious and I really ought to leave such musings to my anthropology pages.
This is such a simple recipe. I threw it together for the first time a few weeks back when all I had in the fridge was a bunch of carrots from the farmers’ market and some preserved lemons that I made a few months ago. (Any excuse to use the lemons – they are fabulous.)
A small note on preserved lemons: it is very hard to give a specific measurement for these because they vary hugely in their intensity. If they are really old, homemade ones you may only need a sliver. On the other hand, the shop bought ones tend to lack flavour and I would be tempted to add a whole one. Please do taste them first and adjust the measurements accordingly.
I ate this as a dish in its own right, but it would make a wonderful accompaniment to a meaty main, such as a lamb tagine, or as part of a spread of Ottolenghi-style salads.
Serves four as a side dish.
Ingredients
1kg carrots or 3 bunches baby carrots
3 tbsp olive oil
½ preserved lemon, or to taste, finely chopped
2 tsp cumin seeds
2 tsp coriander seeds
2 tsp caraway seeds
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
Salt, to taste
Method
Preheat the oven to 180C.
Wash and peel the carrots. Cut into batons or if using baby carrots trim the stalks leaving about 1-2cm and leave whole.
Put the carrots in a big roasting tray with the olive oil, preserved lemon, cumin seeds, coriander seeds and caraway seeds and toss.
Put the carrots in the oven for 10-12 minutes (it depends how big the carrots are). Remove from the oven, add the garlic and toss. Put back in the oven for 5 minutes until the garlic is soft.
Season with salt, if required, though you may not need it depending on how salty the preserved lemons are.
