Now, anyone who knows me is aware of my distaste for most salads - especially when lettuce or greens are involved. But in Mr. Oliver's lovely book was a recipe for a carrot salad that looked quite tasty. But here's where my bad habits come in. I didn't have mandarin oranges. That's it - that's the extent of my sin. So I improvised.
May I present to you: Heather's carrot salad.
It consists of grated carrot, fresh chopped cilantro, prunes, sesame seeds and dressed with an emulsion of lime juice and walnut oil. Walnut oil is so my flavour of the month.
It turned out quite nicely. Quite nicely indeed. It's hard to stick to recipes when experiments turn out like this.
(ADDED)
My husband is still raving about it today, and he insisted I write the full recipe down somewhere so he can replicate it. Here we go:
salad:
4 large carrots, peeled
handful of fresh cilantro leaves
3 prunes
handful of sesame seeds
dressing:
1 lime, juiced
twice as much Walnut Oil
Grate the carrots into a big bowl. I don't like cilantro stems, so I pull the leaves off first, then chop them up. Throw them in the bowl too. Halve the prunes lengthwise then slice them finely into strips (half a cm wide). I find that throwing the prune bits in little by little and tossing along the way is best, so that they don't stick to each other. Toss in the sesame seeds. Mix the whole thing up with your hands. To make the dressing, combine the juice and oil in a little jar or plastic container and shake vigourously. Once well mixed, drizze two or three tablespoonsworth over the salad. Toss to coat. And you're done!
