After having great success with a variety of home-made dips all generated from my vegetable patch, I feel ready to entertain at a moments notice.
My latest carrot creation has joined Beetroot & Tahini Hummus and Broad Bean & Pea Dip as a new favourite!
Carrots are generally easy to grow (I say with my tongue in cheek as I had a funny first experience, turning out mutant carrots!) The state of the soil really matters and now that I have everything in order (eg: light, sandy soil to allow the roots to grow freely) carrots are a permanent feature in my vegetable garden. I tend to sow a full packet, then rather than thinning as young seedlings, let them all grow and harvest sporadically (baby carrots and mature ones) to ensure there is limited clumping. This works to some degree of success however I will try and behave next planting and follow the rule book to see if it really does make a difference.
I harvest carrots as I need them so they don’t go to waste in the bottom of my fridge. This means that when I do pull them up, they are in various states of maturity. Older, larger carrots aren’t necessarily better – in fact, they can lose their sweetness and become particularly bitter.
For my ‘home grown Christmas’ this year I decided to start how I meant to go on and serve up three home grown dips, this being the first time I’d attempted to work with carrot in this capacity — but I needn’t have been concerned, it was delicious! Roasting as you may already know really brings out the sweetness in root vegetables, so would highly recommend you don’t attempt to fast-track the recipe and boil them instead!
Inspired by warm spices and sweet carrot, this Moroccan Carrot Dip ticks lots of boxes.
Moroccan Carrot Dip
Ingredients
- 400g roasted carrots
- salt to season
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- 2 tsp minced ginger
- 2 tsp minced garlic
- 1 Tbsp lime juice
- 1 tsp honey
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 2 Tbsp hot tomato salsa (optional)
Method
- Preheat oven to 180ºC.
- Wash carrots (peel if you wish, or scrub skin to remove soil) and cut into roasting chunks. Pat dry with a paper towel then generously rub with olive oil before placing on a lined roasting dish. Sprinkle with salt then roast for approx 40mins.
- Remove from oven when cooked (browned on the outside and soft in the centre) and allow to cool.
- Combine all ingredients in a food processor and blend on low or ‘pulse’ until smooth. Be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl to ensure that no lumpy chunks remain. You may wish to drizzle more olive oil nearer the end of the blend until you are happy with the texture.
- While not essential, I added tomato salsa at the end and folded it through for a spicy kick!
