Roasted and Raw Carrot Salad with Avocado and Toasted Cumin Vinaigrette Recipe | Epicurious

I love using baby carrots in assorted colors. Thumbelina carrots, which are little and stubby, are great for roasting. I use red, orange, yellow, and white carrots for the ribbons, which make this salad so vibrant. Even just the orange variety next to the green of the avocado and mizuna makes a beautiful and colorful salad. Toasting whole cumin seeds and then grinding them in a mortar and pestle or an electric spice grinder is essential for the great taste of this vinaigrette. If you don't have either way of grinding spices, you can substitute cumin powder. This salad rocks from the contrast between the soft texture and caramelized sweetness of the roasted carrots and their raw and crunchy counterparts.

Ingredients

Serves 4

2 bunches (about 10 ounces total) baby carrots in assorted colors, tops trimmed

1/4 cup olive oil, plus more as needed

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1/4 cup pine nuts

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lime juice

1 ripe avocado

2 cups mizuna, watercress, ancho cress, or arugula greens

Step 1
Preheat the oven to 375°F.
Step 2
Have an ice bath (a bowl of ice water) ready. Using a vegetable peeler, peel ribbons of carrots from half of the carrots. Place in the ice water to chill (the ribbons will curl after a while in the water).
Step 3
Place the remaining whole carrots on a baking sheet; drizzle with some olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast until the edges start to caramelize, 15 to 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and set aside at room temperature. Lower the oven temperature to 350°F.
Step 4
Toast the pine nuts in the oven for about 10 minutes or in a small pan on the stove top over medium-low heat, shaking constantly, until brown and fragrant; pour into a bowl to cool and set aside. Toast the cumin seeds in a small sauté pan over medium heat, tossing or stirring constantly until fragrant, and then pour quickly into a mortar and pestle or spice grinder and grind into a powder. Alternatively, use ground cumin.
Step 5
For the dressing, in a medium bowl, whisk the cumin with the lemon and lime juices, salt, and pepper; slowly whisk in the 1/4 cup olive oil.
Step 6
Remove the carrot ribbons from the ice water and pat dry with paper towels. Peel, pit, and slice the avocado.
Step 7
Divide the avocado slices and roasted carrots among 4 salad plates. In a bowl, toss the carrot ribbons and greens in the dressing, and divide among the plates.
Step 8
Sprinkle a few pine nuts on each salad and serve.

Reprinted with permission fromCooking off the Clock: Recipes from My Downtimeby Elizabeth Falkner, copyright © 2012. Published by Ten Speed Press, a division of Random House, Inc.Elizabeth Falkneris the founding chef and owner of Citizen Cake and Orson in San Francisco and is currently opening a new restaurant in Brooklyn, NY. She was a finalist and runner-up onThe Next Iron Chefin 2011, competed onTop Chef Mastersand has judgedTop Chef MastersandTop Chef. Elizabeth wasBon Appétit's pastry chef of the year in 2006. Her first book,Demolition Desserts,was published in 2007.

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Reviews (3)

Loved the contrast of textures between carrot ribbons and roasted carrots. I added more cumin than called for bc I love the taste of it.
- kbpoole
- Los Angeles, CA
- 1/14/2021
I've made this twice. The first time I roasted three quarters of the carrots and I much preferred that over the recipe's half/half that I followed the second time. I used multi colored carrots and it was so pretty and delicious but I'm giving 4 forks for the change (3/4 roasted, 1/4 raw).
- Anonymous
- Albany, NY
- 5/5/2017
I made this recipe because I wanted to find something to do with the mizuna I bought for the first time at the farmer's market. (Didn't have other greens or would thrown them in but I thought it might be bitter on its own, but it was alright). This was alright but nothing special. The roast carrot was very tasty but overall the salad was bland. The raw carrots were pretty and I can imagine would be lovely if I had multicolored carrots (need to find a way to get them that pretty in a less time-consuming manner). Could not taste the cumin (used the method recommended). It was impossible to crush with mortar and pestle so ended up putting it through a spice grinder anyway (use fine setting). Probably my cumin was old, but I may have also used to much greens because I didn't measure them. I didn't have baby coloured carrots so I used regular orange carrots. I would definitely add more avocado if I could have spared more (made avocado ice cream with some others-delish). Too much work for something so simple.
- BlueMona
- Montreal
- 9/22/2012

Tags Salad Salad Dressing Carrot Root Vegetable Vegetable Avocado Mizuna Leafy Greens Starter Dinner Vegetarian Vegan Gluten Free Dairy Free Fall Cookbooks

Roasted and Raw Carrot Salad with Avocado and Toasted Cumin Vinaigrette

Ingredients

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

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Step 5

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Step 8

Reviews (3)

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