Shaved Carrot Salad

I always thought I didn't like salad. that's because I thought of salads as perishable, leafy green based that were more often than not limp and inedible due to being overdressed by a dressing that had never heard of fat-acid-salt balance.

Here and there a delicious dish would make it's way into my hands that was technically a salad (such as Joelle's Kale and Roasted Potatoes salad) and would admit there was exceptions - very few exceptions - to my no salad rule. 

Then I read Samin Nosrat's Salt Fat Acid Heat cookbook and I loved it. There were all sorts of things labeled as "salad" in that book that involved lots of vegetables - and hardly any lettuce. I trusted her to know what she was talking about and started cooking...errr peeling, slicing, chopping, and tossing. Not only was it not lettuce, it was vegetables that in the past I've not been able to eat no matter how they were prepared - such as carrots. That is the power of balancing flavor and paying attention to texture.

Pictured: my three favorite salads, with not a lettuce leaf in site. Pictured is a beet and citrus salad (top), a slaw with mangos and candied nuts (this does not give justice to the deep flavor of this slaw that manages to be sweet, tart, unami, spicy all at the same time), and in the lower right hand corner is the shaved carrot salad this post is all about. 

This shaved salad combines carrots and raisins, two ingredients that I normally do not eat, into something actually delicious. Thinly shaved carrots, fat rehydrated plump raisins are marinated in a combination of cumin, ginger, and lime, with the the spice of chopped fresh jalopeno lingering in the background. It is perfection.

I'm listing amounts of ingredients here, but once you've made it once or twice it's easy to eye ball it. Nowadays I shave the amount of carrots that I want and then adjust the quantities of the other ingredients to look suitable.

I think this salad is best eaten after at LEAST 12 hours of marinating, and even more is better.

This recipe leans heavily on Nosrat's version, with my own flourishes. She suggests using a mandolin thin slicer thing to cut the carrots, or cutting into very small matchsticks, but the only way that the texture of the carrots is acceptable to my brain (crunchy raw vegetables in my mouth set off a gag reflex) is the very thin strips generated by a peeler, so that's how I specify it here.

Let's Git 'er Done!

Dressing

This is a super simple lime vinaigrette. It has to set so make it first. 

Squeeze 2 small limes (about 2 tablespoons of juice) into a small bowl. 

Crush 1 garlic clove and add to bowl along with 

5 tablespoons of olive oil, and 

a pinch of salt. Set aside.

Salad

Boil water and submerge 1 1/4 cup raisins. Set aside to plump, 10-15 min (or whenever the rest of the salad is prepped and combined). 

Peel and trim 2 pounds of carrots and then use a vegetable peeler to shave the carrots into thin strips and place into bowl. 

Coarsely chop 2 cups of cilantro, 

grate 4 teaspoons of fresh ginger, 

chop 1-2 fresh jalapeños (adjust to taste), 

grate 1 garlic clove and add all to the bowl of carrots. 

Add the raisins to the bowl because I know it took you at least 10 min to prepare all this stuff...

Eye ball 2-3 teaspoons of ground cumin into the bowl. 

Add a pinch or two of salt. 

Remove the garlic glove from the the lime vinaigrette and pour dressing over the carrot salad. Toss to combine, and taste for seasoning. Add salt to taste.