30 mins
Super easy
serves 4
About the recipe
Zingy, crunchy and light, this colourful carrot and lamb salad makes a brilliant side dish or snack.
Ingredients
600g good-quality coarsely ground lean lamb
2 teaspoons garam masala
500g carrots (mixed colours if possible), peeled
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
½ a bunch of fresh coriander (15g), leaves picked
½ a bunch of fresh mint (15g), leaves picked
DRESSING
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
3 shallots or 1 small red onion, peeled
zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 heaped teaspoon freshly grated ginger
extra virgin olive oil
Method
- Heat a large frying pan and fry your ground lamb until all the fat comes out of it. Add the garam masala and a good pinch of sea salt and give it a stir. Keep frying until the meat is lovely and crispy.
- Shave the carrots into long thin strips with a speed peeler or a mandolin slicer and keep them to one side.
- Heat a small frying pan over a moderate heat and toast the cumin seeds for 30 seconds – they will start to smell nutty and gorgeous. You’re not trying to cook the seeds here, you’re just waking their flavours up a bit.
- Put them into a pestle and mortar and grind them up. Place the pan back on the heat and toast the sesame seeds until golden. Transfer them to a plate.
- Slice your peeled shallots or onion wafer thin. As with all salads that contain onion, you don’t want to be coming across great big chunks! If you don’t feel confident about your knife skills, use the coarse side of a box grater instead. This will almost mush your onions to a purée, but at least you won’t come across any big bits.
- To make your dressing, grate the lemon zest and squeeze the juice into a bowl and add the shallots or onion, grated ginger, ground cumin and a pinch of salt. Whisk everything together with about 5 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil.
- Pour the dressing over the carrots, add the coriander and mint leaves, and mix it all together using your fingers. It’s important that you have a little taste to check whether the dressing needs more lemon juice, oil or seasoning.
- Divide the crunchy lamb mince between four plates and put the dressed salad on top. Sprinkle with the toasted sesame seeds. Served with naan bread, some yoghurt and lemon halves, this makes a great snack!
Tags