Turkish Carrot Salad with Yogurt

 

“Yoğurtlu havuç” (carrot and yogurt salad) is a frequent and frequently forgettable part of the traditional Turkish meze spread. Sometimes boiled, sometimes raw, carrots are grated, combined with strained garlicky yogurt and popped on the table as is. Hatice Abla did something different. She first shaved the carrots into thin strips and cooked them in the swooning quantity of excellent olive oil. Some strips even got nicely caramelized. Then she crashed a handful of walnuts and diced plenty of garlic and stirred all the into the piping hot carrots. Then she made me taste. I paused, looked at her and confessed, “I am feeling so lucky to be at your kitchen right now”. She smiled as she was mixing the carrots with a few dollops of the strained yogurt we brought from the market.

Carrot cake aside, when was the last time you made carrot the star in a dish? Too often carrot is just another onion you dice finely only to add more flavor to your soup or stew. Does not this vegetable deserve a bigger role on your tables?

In the Turkish salad carrot goes lavish in the company of crashed toasted walnuts, earthy spices, garlic, parsley, yogurt and abundance of olive oil. Serve it as a part of your meze feast, but also keep in mind that in desperate times you may spread this Turkish carrot salad on a piece of good rye bread and call it a lunch.

Prep Time: 10 min
Cook Time: 10 min
Total Time: 20 min

Serves: 8

Ingredients

• 1 kg carrots (about 10 medium)
• ³⁄₄ cup extra virgin olive oil
• ¹⁄₂ tsp ground cumin seeds
• 3 large cloves garlic finely diced
• ¹⁄₂ tsp ground coriander seeds
• ¹⁄₂ tsp fine sea salt and more to taste
• ¹⁄₂ cup walnuts
• ¹⁄₂ cup finely chopped parsley
• ¹⁄₂ cup strained yogurt

Directions

1. Wash and scrub the carrots. With the vegetable peeler shave off as many thin strips from each carrot as possible; I usually end up with less than a 1/2 cm (1/5 inch)-thick core that you could use to make stock or add to your soup or stew later on.
2. Warm the olive oil in a wide pan on the medium heat and add the carrot strips. Season with salt at once. Cover with a fitting lid and let cook until the carrots lose their crunch and become soft (about 7-10 min). Keep the heat at medium: it is nice to get some of those carrots caramelized, but stir now and then to prevent scorching.
3. Meanwhile, in a separate pan toast the walnuts over the low heat tossing the pan very frequently. As you get a few brown spots on the walnuts transfer them to a zip-lock and beat with a wooden rolling pin to crush the walnuts. I recommend crushing them rather than chopping to release more oil and hence the flavor.
4. Once the carrots are soft, stir in the cumin, coriander and diced garlic. As the aromatics release their smells, turn off the heat and add the crushed walnuts (reserving some for serving) and chopped parsley. Let cool. Finally mix with the strained yogurt and sprinkle with the reserved crushed walnuts just before serving.