I’ll be honest. I’ve had better Tuesdays. Mainly those which haven’t involved my fridge breaking down, my washing machine destroying my favourite cardigan and a nurse telling me off for my love of peanut butter (it’s bad for your cholesterol apparently). Hence why I am sitting here, watching Newsnight, eating huge handfuls of these Marinated Carrots with Basil and Mint and feeling more than a little sorry for myself.
I’m a sucker for anything pickled at the best of times (when we were kids, my sister and I would eat huge dill pickles by the jarful). So, seeing as I’m on a diet at the moment and therefor unable to indulge in cake and wine on a whim, it’s pickles I turn to when I’m craving sharp slices of comfort. When I found myself in posession of a glut of carrots recently, I decided not to turn them into soup, but douse them in vinegar, oil and herbs instead. The end result was delicious – bright, zingy and just on the right side of lip puckering, the perfect thing to garnish a dull winter salad (I’ve recently been adding them to huge bowls of couscous studded with crunchy chickpeas and nuggets of salty feta) or add a bit of life to a falafel wrap.
Whilst the original recipe for these over at Serious Eats calls for you to just use plain old oil, I decided to jazz mine up a bit with some homemade chilli oil that I keep stuffed away at the back of my cupboards for these type of occasions. If you want to make your own, it’s dead easy – just heat up some vegetable oil, and pour it over some dried chillies (or dried chilli flakes). Once it’s cooled, you’re ready to go.
A word to the wise when you’re pickling your carrots though – I’m not joking when I say that you need to keep these covered whilst they’re marinating. I left them uncovered in a glass bowl at the back of the fridge, leading Mr. Cay to tell me in no uncertain terms that opening our fridge was “like that scene in the X-Files where Mulder sees an alien and wakes up to discover burns around his eyes and mouth.” So if you don’t want to be hit in the face with a wave of pungent vinegar fumes every time you’re reaching for the milk, keep them safely sealed in a plastic tub until you need to use them.
MARINATED CARROTS WITH BASIL AND MINT (Makes four decent sized portions)
Adapted from Serious Eats
You will need:
- 6-7 medium sized carrots
- 3 tbsp chilli oil (although ordinary olive oil works just as well)
- 3 tbsp rice vinegar
- 2 tbsp chopped mint
- 2 tbsp chopped basil
- 1 small clove of garlic, minced finely
- Salt and Pepper to season
Make It!
- Peel carrots and slice them into thick rounds (they should be roughly the thickness of a 2p coin). Simmer in a pot of salted water until just tender.
- While carrots cook, whisk together the chilli oil, rice vinegar, basil, mint, diced garlic and salt and pepper.
- Drain the carrots, toss them together with the vinaigrette in a large bowl and let them sit until carrots are cool.
- Place carrots in refrigerator and let them marinate for at least 1 hour before serving.(It’s best to cover the carrots with clingfilm whilst they’re marinating, otherwise they will stink out everything in your fridge). They’ll keep for around 4-5 days.
I am so glad you posted the recipe! I saw you mention these on Twitter and drooled. I weirdly have grown to dislike cooked carrots. They have an odd aftertaste to me, so I’m always on the lookout for recipes to perk up raw ones.
I have a batch brewing in a tupperware as we speak. Can’t wait!
Sounds pretty nice! I wonder what it would be like if you made carrot kimchi with similar spices…
Mmm, pickles.
These look great and I like the idea of adding them to couscous.
One of my favourite sides is almost like a pickle-lite, made out of carrots where you dice them, and combine with some lemon juice, salt and coriander leaves. You then heat up some oil in a little pan, add black mustard seeds and when they start popping you throw in some chopped green chillies and then pour the lot over the carrots. Really tasty with Indian dishes.