Summer Carrot Salad from Tunisia

There are cooked carrot dishes or raw carrot salads. But the recipe I would like to share today is for a salad that is made from cooked carrot and, as all salads, it is served cold. It comes from the Tunisian culinary tradition.

I have been reading about this salad in different Mediterranean and African cookbooks and always had the impression that it was worth trying. Last week, I bought a large bag of organic carrots and turned them into a bowl of cooked carrot salad.

It is a simple salad but the several recipes for it I read differed somewhat in that they called for slightly different spices. I tried the oldest recipe, which seemed most classical, and made some additions to it.

Cooked carrot, marinated in all the ingredients, turned out light, slightly spicy, and very aromatic. I think that using harissa (Middle Eastern spicy paste available in most oriental food stores), which has more flavor than cayenne pepper that is used in some recipes, made big difference. I also liked it better with cilantro rather than parsley. In some recipes, this salad was finished with yogurt but mine was made with feta cheese which I also liked better.

The salad can be made ahead, which makes it a great party salad. I marinated mine overnight. It is a perfect summer dish and a great accompaniment to grilled meats, especially those prepared in Middle Eastern or Mediterranean style.

Summer Carrot Salad from Tunisia

Ingredients:
1 lb carrot, preferably organic,
1-2 tsp harissa, depending on how spicy you like it,
3 tbsp fresh lemon juice,
2 cloves garlic, minced,
2 tsp ground caraway seeds,
1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves, chopped,
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil,
1/2 cup Feta cheese,
salt.

Preparation:
1. Peel off the carrots and cut them into thick slices. Place in a medium pot, cover with water, add 1 tsp of salt and cook for about 20 minutes until soft but still tender. Drain the water if any is left and cool the carrot to room temperature.

2. In a small bowl stir garlic, harissa, lemon juice, caraway seeds, olive oil. Mix all the ingredients.

3. Transfer cooked carrot to a cutting board and chop it with a knife into smaller pieces. Transfer it to a medium bowl, drizzle with dressing, add chopped cilantro and mix. Let the salad marinate for at least 4 hours or preferably overnight.
4. Before serving sprinkle with crumbled Feta pieces.

Carrots with Pine Nuts--Italian Way

There is a carrot dish probably in every culinary tradition. There is also one in Polish cuisine. We cut carrots in cubes, cook in a little bit of water, and thicken with butter and flour at the end. I love carrots prepared that way, especially with typical Polish dishes, for instance meatballs or chicken and potato puree. And I eat it always like that when I go back home. My mother makes it from very sweet and young carrots that she buys at the farmers' market and serves them always with meats.

But somehow I do not prepare carrot this way anymore at my home here. Most often I make Thai style carrots with roasted almonds or recently even more often I make carrots with pine nuts, a dish that comes from the Italian tradition. Carrots prepared this way are a bit drier, rather sautéd than cooked to a very soft stage and that is what I like a lot about this dish. I enjoy vegetables more when they are cooked al dente rather than completely soft or mushy as we often do it in Poland.

I remember my Italian friend cooking carrots in a very similar way, almost without water, but she did not add pine nuts. I also like to add chopped sage, which makes the mild carrots almost spicy. They taste great just with roasted baby potatoes or as a meat accompaniment.

Carrots with Pine Nuts

Ingredients:
1 lb of carrots,
1 medium onion, chopped,
2 tbsp pine nuts,
2 tbsp olive oil,
1 tsp brown sugar,
4 tbsp Marsala or any red wine,
salt and freshly ground black pepper,
1 tbsp chopped sage(optional)

Preparation:
1. Peel off the carrots and cut them into slices.

2. Heat the oil in a medium pan and add onion. Fry for about 3 minutes. Add carrots and sprinkle with sugar. Let the vegetables caramelize a bit.
3. Add about half a cup of water, salt and pepper, and let it all cook on a medium heat until most of the water evaporates.
4. Add red wine and let it cook again for about 3 minutes. Turn off the heat, add pine nuts and chopped sage if used. Serve warm.

Thai Style Ginger Carrot--Replica of a Missing Hit

There used to be a wonderful dish called Thai Style Ginger Carrot, which I bought regularly at the frozen food section of my Trader Joe's store. It was a simple dish of shredded carrot--orange and yellow, shredded ginger, and some slivered almonds. It was not spicy at all, despite ginger, but wonderfully crunchy and savory and tasted not the least like a ready made frozen food. It was a very popular dish also for my kids, who do not like carrots in any other incarnation. So, on my weekly trip to TJ's, I was always buying a few bags of ginger carrot and served it as often, as they asked for it.

Unfortunately, as many good products, one day it has disappear forever. I have learned that it has been discontinued due to insufficient client interest. Strange, as often times my local store was not able to keep up with the demand. But perhaps DC area consumers are different and most elsewhere this product was not popular enough to be sold nation-wide.

When the other day my son asked about ginger carrot, I decided to recreate it myself. I bought a bag of shredded carrot, and a big piece of ginger. The rest was just improvisation.

There were obvious ingredients that you could taste and see--carrot, ginger and almonds, but the sauce in which they were fried was not so evident. It was not very greasy but tasty in a way that made the whole difference. I made the base sauce form oil and soy sauce, but it was not rich enough, as it was in TJ's ginger carrot. Since the dish was coming or was inspired by Thai cuisine I added a little bit of peanut butter to the sauce--thinking about the taste of a typical pad Thai. That made the whole difference. The sauce became thicker and very similar to what we remembered. Here is how I made it.

Thai Style Ginger Carrot
(Serves four as accompaniment)

Ingredients:
4 cups (10 oz) shredded carrot,
2 tbsp ground ginger,
1 tbsp olive oil,
1 tbsp peanut butter,
1/3 cup slivered roasted almonds,
2 tbsp light soy sauce,
1/4 cup chopped Italian parsley.

Preparation:
1. Heat oil on a large roasting pan, and when hot, add ginger and fry for about one minute.
2. In a separate bowl, mix peanut butter and soy sauce into a homogeneous sauce, and add it to ginger.
2. Throw carrot and almonds into the pan and coat with the sauce.
3. Fry for about about 3-4 minutes--carrot should be al dente and crispy.
4. Take off from the heat, add chopped parsley, and serve.