Spiced Yogurt Roasted Carrots with Tahini Sauce, Walnuts & Coriander
The carrots cook in the spiced yoghurt here and as they cook, the curds take on a wonderful spicy scent that completely elevates some - I’ll be honest - rather boring carrots from the fridge! Be sure to scrape all the cooking juices over the carrots, then dress with the creamy tahini dressing. I have sumac and pomegranate molasses to hand here at home, these two ingredients are store cupboard staples for me here at home and match the tahini dressing beautifully. A gorgeous plate of food.
INGREDIENTS
800g carrots, peeled and sliced into batons
3 shallots, peeled and thinly sliced
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground turmeric
4 heaped tbsp natural yoghurt
3 tbsp olive oil, plus extra to serve
Salt and pepper, to taste
3 tbsp tahini
1 garlic, grated
Juice 1/2 lemon
About 150ml warm water, more or less depending on the original consistency of your tahini
Small bunch of coriander, roughly chopped
Handful of walnuts, lightly toasted and roughly chopped
Sumac, to taste, optional
Pomegranate molasses, to taste, optional (or use date or grape molasses)
METHOD
Put the prepped carrots in a bowl and add the yogurt, olive oil, cumin, coriander and turmeric. Season with salt and pepper and mix well to coat.
Lay the carrots on a baking tray in an even layer and add a little extra olive oil, cover and bake in hot oven at 180C until the carrots have softened, around 30 minutes. Remove the foil and blast under a hot grill for around 5 minutes to get a bit of colour to the carrots and the spiced yogurt curds.
Meanwhile, in a bowl add the tahini, lemon juice, garlic and big pinch of salt and mix well. The tahini will seize and thicken in the bowl as you mix it. Add warm water (I add this to the empty jar, ensuring every last bit of tahini used), add enough warm water, mixing as you do, until the tahini reaches the desired consistency, I like it super whippy and to have the consistency of the yogurt. You may need to add a slosh more water when you come to serve the tahini sauce, just keep going with a slosh more warm water until the consistency is right. Check the seasoning, squeeze more lemon, pinch more salt?
Put the cooked carrots on a large serving plate, including all the cooking juices, not much to look at perhaps, but extremely delicious, and then set about dressing this dish to be super beautiful as in this photo.
Add the tahini sauce, add the chopped coriander, toasted walnuts and big pinch of sumac is good here, so too is some pomegranate molasses. Eat warm or room temperature, also great in a lunchbox or as part of a sharing style meal.