Slow-cooked carrots with White Bean, Parsley and Lemon Salad

Writing this in the middle of Storm Brendan and Veganuary, it’s time to turn to the fridge and see what we can rustle up for lunch. With the rain and wind buffeting the house and Scout the dog drying off after his walk, we’ve come up with some carrots, white beans, onion, garlic, parsley and lemon. Carrots can often be overlooked when we’re in search of a veggie star – all those years of over-cooked carrot rounds in school dinners. Their inherent sweetness and colour means they have real wow factor and are right in their element in the depths of our winter. Here’s what we did with them today, making lunch for 2 –

First get your veggies together – 4 carrots, 1 onion, 2 cloves garlic.

Peel and chop everything finely and put in a large wide pan with 2tbsp olive oil. Cook very gently with a pinch of salt and covered with a lid until the veggies are really soft but not coloured at all. This will take some time so that’s a good reason to chop the vegetables very small if you’re in a hurry.

Blitz them until smooth with a hand blender or in a food processor and keep warm. Rinse a small tin of white beans (or half a large one lurking in the fridge as we did). Mix together 1tbsp olive oil, a squirt of lemon juice, 1tsp runny honey and 1tsp mustard of your choice to make a dressing. Add the beans with the finely grated zest of 1/2 a lemon, 1tbsp chopped fresh parsley and pinch of chilli flakes (we used Seaspoon’s seaweed chilli crush) Divide the carrot purée between 2 plates and pile the beany mixture on top. Drizzle over a little extra olive oil and serve at once.

 

You can use the carrot purée as a side dish with a grilled pork chop or chicken breast or serve it cold as a carrot paté, delicious on toast or in sandwiches and also as a dip with crudités. Who says root veg are boring?!

 

• Tweet