On the menu at the MacPerri house tonight was a Middle-Eastern feast. Fortunately, none of it took terribly long to cook, as the in-laws were coming over for a coffee after dinner. I raced to the shops after work, brought home some fish and other fresh ingredients for dinner, and whipped up dinner within the hour. Considering that until about lunchtime today, I had no idea what I was going to cook, but I was happy with my choices today. We had to reset the server at work today, so in the downtime I quickly flipped through Stephanie and found the fish dish I wanted to cook. Once that was sorted, I thought it would be nice to have salad with it, considering the hot, sticky, humid Melbourne weather we've endured this week. I didn't feel like anything too heavy, so I settled on the warm carrot salad and a lentil salad. Fortunately, hubby has grown to love legumes, so there are no complaints from him when it comes to eating these days.
The Middle-Eastern Carrot salad (side margin of p224) was easy to prepare, and I got to use one of my favourite kitchen gadgets - the mortar and pestle. All I did was roast a handful of cumin seeds, and then crushed them with some garlic and a good quality salt. I then added some extra-virgin olive oil and lemon juice. In the meantime, I sliced the carrots and cooked them in boiling water for a couple of minutes. Then I drained the carrots, tossed them into the dressing, seasoned with salt and pepper to taste and threw in a handful of chopped coriander. The recipe also called for roasted pepitas on top, but I just used raw ones. I enjoy the flavour of those anyway, so I thought I didn't want to burn them and run the risk of them turning rancid!
The Middle-Eastern Carrot salad (side margin of p224) was easy to prepare, and I got to use one of my favourite kitchen gadgets - the mortar and pestle. All I did was roast a handful of cumin seeds, and then crushed them with some garlic and a good quality salt. I then added some extra-virgin olive oil and lemon juice. In the meantime, I sliced the carrots and cooked them in boiling water for a couple of minutes. Then I drained the carrots, tossed them into the dressing, seasoned with salt and pepper to taste and threw in a handful of chopped coriander. The recipe also called for roasted pepitas on top, but I just used raw ones. I enjoy the flavour of those anyway, so I thought I didn't want to burn them and run the risk of them turning rancid!
