Cumin roasted carrots with lemony feta and chickpeas

Welcome to To Vegetables, With Love, a celebration of a vegetable life, less ordinary. Find archived recipes on my new recipe index.

My book Tenderheart is available from Books are Magic, Kitchen, Arts and Letters, Book Larder, Bold Fork Books and also here or here.

THANK YOU TO ALL THE PAID SUBSCRIBERS WHO ENTERED MY TENDERHEART SCARF GIVEAWAY LAST WEEK. WINNERS HAVE BEEN NOTIFIED VIA DIRECT MESSAGE!

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This week’s recipe was inspired by an unlikely source - my husband.

To be honest, my husband is not allowed in the kitchen much nowadays. The thing is, when you are a recipe developer, your home kitchen is also your workspace so, yes, I am overly precious about how it is ‘ordered’. Generally, I like my kitchen to be the way I left it. So over recent years, it’s become an unspoken agreement - I cook dinner, and he cleans up afterwards.

So, it did come as a surprise the other night when he offered to cook dinner….and the bigger surprise? I agreed. Let me just say, he is a competent cook. When we first met, he was a student living with his older brother in Sydney and they often cooked up these massive portions of bolognese ragu to go into the freezer. We often cooked for dinner parties together. While I was working at my first job, and he was still finishing university, he brought me delightful ricotta and honey sandwiches for lunch; I would look out my office window and see him twirling his yo-yo while he waited, brown lunch bag in tow. Total geek.

On the night he offered to cook, he had a clear vision in mind - a dish of whipped feta topped with matbucha which he had seen my friend Molly Yeh cook on her show Girl Meets Farm, along with a salad from one of my books. He surprised me with his salad choice - it was one that I had not cooked or thought about for a long time - Chermoula roasted orange vegetables with chickpeas and couscous, from my second book Neighbourhood (I will share this recipe as a bonus to PAID Subscribers this week). The thing is, even though I have developed and cooked hundreds of salads at this point, each and every one still tastes very transportive for me. Smelling the spices as he pounded them with the mortar and pestle, and then the sweet perfume of the vegetables roasting with the chermoula, it took me back to our early days in Brooklyn, when our lives felt uncertain as we got acquainted with our new home. Back then, that salad felt like discovery…but on this day, rediscovery.

Together, the two dishes - Molly’s matbucha with whipped feta, and my chermoula orange vegetable salad - were utterly perfect. Well done, Ross.

A dinner made by my husband

Inspired by my husband’s Sunday night dinner, this week’s recipe is a flavour amalgamation of the two dishes  - roasted cumin carrots (though you could use other orange vegetables like sweet potato or pumpkin squash) served on top of lemony marinated feta and chickpeas.

Personally, I find roasted carrots so satisfying, the humblest of vegetables transformed into a sweet and earthy bite. I’ve added cumin seeds two ways - the seeds add a crunch while the ground variety delivers citrusy earthy notes. Of course, you can stick to one type of cumin if that is what you have one hand.

This recipe is the epitome of pantry ingredients, transformed into something intensely flavorful. I used vegan feta for this recipe but dairy works too of course.

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🥦 My cookbook, Tenderheart is for cooking vegetables, all year round. Pick up your copy here. It is also mostly vegan (or vegan-izable) and gluten-free adaptable.

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COOK / EAT / SHARE

There’s a few new or newish recipes over at NYT Cooking which you should absolutely try. This spanokorizo with jammy eggs is a standout - an instant addition to our family repertoire. There is also this protein-rich chili crisp fried rice with tofu and edamame which is an easy and adaptable recipe. This creamy tofu noodle recipe was featured on a NYT newsletter this week - it’s definitely worth trying, if you’re vegan or not; this is so much better than real cream (don’t hate me!).

Spanokorizo from NYT Cooking. Photo credit: Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Cyd Raftus McDowell.

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THIS WEEK’S RECIPE

Cumin roasted carrots with lemony chickpeas and feta

© Hetty Lui McKinnon for To Vegetables, With Love

Serves 4

670g carrots (6 medium), peeled and cut into 5cm/2-inch batons
extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon ground cumin
salt and black pepper
500g (about 1 pound) cooked chickpea, drained (from 2 cans)
Zest and juice of 1 lemon, plus optional lemon juice for serving
1 clove garlic, grated
1/2-1 teaspoon red chili (pepper) flakes
225g (8 ounces) vegan or dairy feta, crumbled
Big handful of dill, mint or parsley (or a combination of all of them)

Preheat oven to 220˚C / 425˚F.

Place the carrots on baking sheet and add the cumin seeds, ground cumin, about 2 tablespoons of olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Toss to coat and then arrange in a single layer. Place in the oven and roast until tender and golden around the edges, 22-25 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl, add the chickpeas, zest and juice of 1 lemon, garlic, red chili (pepper) flakes, feta, herbs and about 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Season with salt and black pepper and toss to combine. Set aside to marinate while the carrots roast.

To serve, place the carrots on top of the chickpeas, drizzle with more olive oil, and season with salt and pepper. To finish, drizzle with olive oil and squeeze over some lemon juice, if you like.

Cumincarrotsfetachickpeas

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