Carrot Salad With Cardamon, Ginger And Lemon

For this week, I Heart Cooking Club, which is currently cooking from Tessa Kiros's recipes, theme is "Orange Skies". So, naturally I search for recipes with oranges as the ingredient. I did not want to bake any cakes or desserts, but wanted something savory instead.

While looking for recipes with oranges, I came across this Carrot Salad which sounds interesting with cardamon, ginger and lemon as the ingredients. And decided to give this a try instead. I have never tried carrots as the main ingredient in a salad before. It has always been ''one of the ingredients", along with other veggies.

The recipe calls for the carrots to be processed in a blender but not too fine as to keep some texture,  but I  grated the carrots instead, as I prefer to have more texture in my salad. This is a pretty simple and quick salad to put together. According to Tessa Kiros, this recipe is a friend of her mother's, who picked up this recipe in India. And this salad works well with spicy food.

Overall review : I like it. The sweetness of the carrots blends well with the spiciness of the cardamom, ginger and pepper, the tinge sourness of the lemon and the freshness from the mint leaves. Though I did not have this with any spicy food, yes, I think that it will complement well indeed with spicy meat dishes. I have some leftover which I kept in the fridge, and it tastes even better the next day!

To view other delightful yummies based on the theme "Orange Skies" hop over to I Heart Cooking Club.

Carrot Salad with Cardamom, Ginger and Lemon
(source from "Falling Cloudberries" by Tessa Kiros)
Ingredients
1-1/4 pounds (about 8 medium) carrots
1/2 red onion, finely chopped
juice of 2 lemons
2/3 cup olive oil
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon sugar
a pinch of white pepper
1-1/4 inch piece of ginger, finely chopped or grated
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
a small handful of fresh mint leaves, to serve


Put the carrots in a blender and pulse into small pieces (not too fine as you need to keep some texture). Transfer to a bowl, add the onion, and mix together well.
To make the dressing, whisk together the lemon juice, oil, salt, sugar, white pepper, ginger and cardamom. Add to the carrots and onion, toss well, and then chill for a few hours. Toss in a few mint leaves before serving.